I was called in to make a mechanized cupcake dispenser over a weekend for Jet Blue, to be set up in their JFK terminal. This was a challenging project because I needed to design a mechanism that would feed out the small plastic balls without accidentally crushing them. Also, the cupcake was not centered in the plastic ball, so the various ramps and feeding mechanisms needed to be angled so that they would overcome the plastic ball’s tendency to come to a rest instead of rolling, with the heaviest end of the ball weighing the ball down.
I ended up solving the problem of the balls jamming in the machine by adding an agitator made out of sections of a retractable measuring tape – the spring steel would clear up jams without crushing the cupcake balls to bits!
