Creating a Vending Machine with Lego Mindstorm Abstract: Vending machines have come a long way since their introduction into human society thousands of years ago. Although the basic concept of a vending machine has not changed, modern technology has significantly improved it. Our vending machine is no different. While our vending machine isn't top of the line, it's not that bad either. We started by building the five main components of a vending machine: the dispenser, the bowl, the selection device and the payment reader, entirely made of LEGO. We decided on a door as a dispenser and buttons as a selection device. The payment we decided to accept were barcodes. The only component that really gave us problems was the dispenser. The design of our first dispenser was seriously flawed. After devising a door-like mechanism, the dispenser was easily repaired. Even though we have proven our hypothesis correct, there are still many improvements we could make, such as improving the design to make it easier to maintain. Question: Is it possible to create a working candy machine with just LEGOs? Purpose: Build a candy machine that can: · Read a barcode · Detect whether it is fake or not · Send a signal to the other RCX to allow the user to:1) Select the candy2) Making sure the machine stays stillBackground :The History of Counterfeiting US Currency Counterfeiting money is one of the oldest crimes in history. Therefore I had to find out how to use a LEGO RCX to recognize a correct banknote and reject it if fake. The Story: During the American Revolution, the English counterfeited U.S. currency in such large quantities that the Continental currency soon became worthless. “Not worth a continent” became a popular expression that is still heard today. During the Civil War, one-third to one-half of the currency in circulation was counterfeit. At the time, about 1,600 state banks designed and printed their own bills. Each banknote had a different design, making it difficult to spot counterfeit banknotes among the 7,000 varieties of genuine banknotes. In 1862, a national currency was adopted to solve the counterfeiting problem. However, the national currency was soon counterfeited and circulated so widely that it became necessary to take coercive measures. Therefore, on July 5, 1865, the United States Secret Service was established to crack down on widespread counterfeiting of this nation's currency. Although money counterfeiting has been substantially cracked down since the establishment of the intelligence service, this crime still represents a potential danger to the nation's economy..