Seen those fountains with the reflecting pool full of change? First build a robot that crawls along the bottom, scoops up the change and separates out the pennies. Easy to do if you've seen Kamen's gang's ball grabbing bots. Coin separators can be had for a few bucks in toy stores. Pennies are singled out, then deposited into an elevator that delivers them to a 'magazine' at the top of the fountain. Motion detectors used to aim a swiveling turret artfully disguised to look like head on top of generic statue (or insert art hack of your preference). Muzzle of solenoid-operated penny shooter hides inside head's mouth or possibly emerges from top of head. In operation thrower of coins is tracked targeted and thwacked (or lobbed) with pennies. Non-penny change is collected to pay the electric bill.-- Steamboat, Jul 17 2010 Build your own airbrush. http://www.thenaked...applying-bernoulli/Yes! [bungston, Jul 19 2010] So... uh... dang, I want to understand this, really I do... what you're suggesting is spitting pennies at the very people throwing the coins into the fountain, then? Righty ho. Carry on. (I shall monitor the carnage from a right and proper distance) [?]-- Grogster, Jul 17 2010 Would you consider having it shoot pennies at *pigeons* ? I think that'd be quite popular.-- mouseposture, Jul 17 2010 Sounds like your returns are going to diminish quite quickly. Once folks learn to stop throwing coins into the fountain, you won't make enough money to pay for injury lawsuits, let alone robot maintenance.
May I suggest instead rigging the fountain to spit water?
You could make it give out seemingly-random fluctuations that just happen to get people wet, which would gently discourage coin-chuckers. Or you could put some more serious jets on the thing and have folks tossing in coins just for the challenge of dodging or the pleasure of getting wet.-- baconbrain, Jul 17 2010 Yes the very people who enjoy this sort of thing are, dare I say it, gluttons for punishment. If I build it, they will come, heh. Might just have to bake it for a Maker Faire.-- Steamboat, Jul 17 2010 Lawsuits?! C'mon man, that's a far cry, we're talking about pennies. Maybe one sick lonely selfish soul will try but, ... come the freak on it's a penny! I rest my case your honor.
I love the targeting aspect... Just a little ping off your shoulder as you walk away to help keep you guessing about that wish, perhaps.-- daseva, Jul 17 2010 // If I build it, they will come //
And if they get hit by pennies, they will sue you ...-- 8th of 7, Jul 17 2010 Alternative idea: Make the act of coin-tossing into the fountain more like the coin-toss games at carnivals. The bottom scavenging bots will still collect all coins which miss the collection cup, sort and separate them, and load the pennies into jackpot magazines. When a lucky (or skillful) wisher tosses a coin into the fountain's collection cup, bells ring, lights flash, and a benign shower of pennies erupts from the fountain announcing to all that the tosser has just been granted his/her special wish, Vegas style.-- jurist, Jul 17 2010 "May it please the Court, this X-ray shows the penny lodged at the back of the eye socket. This bit here is the severed optic nerve ...."-- baconbrain, Jul 18 2010 [baconbrain] May it please the Court, it's well known that "It'll put your eye out" is true of everything fun.
(Except for the things of which it's true that "It makes you go blind.")-- mouseposture, Jul 18 2010 *Takes a hefty swig of sterno-- daseva, Jul 18 2010 IT'S RAINING MEN!
(mostly Lincoln)-- Cedar Park, Jul 18 2010 As cash starved kids my brother and I would take the magnets from stereo speakers and some fishing line to a different mall wishing well most lunch hours.A sliced jacket pocket concealed both the cast and the return of the coin encrusted magnets. We hauled in almost forty bucks one time and this was back in the eighties so that was a fair chunk of cash for a couple of wellfare brats.
Thing is, it never collected a single penny so your separator should be easy enough to make...except for Canadian Loonies and Twonies, I don't know what crap they are made from.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 18 2010 [daseva] You think drinking sterno's not fun? Don't knock it till you've tried ... the alternative. Sterno's way more fun than boot polish strained through bread.-- mouseposture, Jul 18 2010 [2 fries]: Toonie outer ring is 100% nickel. Centre is mostly copper, with a little nickel and aluminum. Loonie is bronze-plated nickel. Both are magnetic. As for pennies, this is a crap-shoot. Most current pennies are magnetic, although there a few issues of copper plated zinc which aren't. All Canadian pennies minted before 1997 were almost all copper, which isn't.-- Cedar Park, Jul 19 2010 Yes, and I've also heard that eating enough corn flakes can make ur ass explode in an MRI. Also, [mouseposture], damn. Wow. Derelict. Like it. Let's huff cow poop in china together sometime.-- daseva, Jul 19 2010 [daseva] Thanks, I'll take a rain check on that.-- mouseposture, Jul 19 2010 I've never understood why copper is not magnetic.
"To the Webcave !!!"-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 19 2010 The problem is that a penny could take your eye out. Or lodge in the socket so you would have to go around with a creepy penny eye.
I like the idea of a fountain that shoots back, though. A steeply sloped base should allow rapid coin collecting in real time. High value coins produce a water show of a bedazzlingness in proportion to value. Pennies get a squirt of water. People would probably throw in pennies and then scamper away so the VengeBot targets some random passer by and metes out the quirt the him or her.-- bungston, Jul 19 2010 Now that I think about it, creepy penny eyes would be a great, cheap, quick custom add on to a storebought'n skeleton mask. Maybe first touch up the black sockets with some green or glowy white paint using a homemade airbrush (see link), then glue penny in the middle of the puff of paint.
What would I do with all this caffeine fueled energy if it weren't for the HB? Now this creepy skeleton mask idea can peacefully live here with its fountain inspiration for when I need it later.-- bungston, Jul 19 2010 random, halfbakery