Using engineering to create a completely over-engineered machine to pop balloons and make a huge mess- all in the name of celebration!

4:10 - Jump to the Balloon Popping Machine in Action

What better way to celebrate reaching a milestone in my social media career than to create this silly, over engineered machine with the sole purpose of popping balloons filled with confetti. As many projects do, the scope of this project grew. What started with the question, how can I pop balloons in a fun way, ended up as 4 engineered sub systems complete with servo motors, an Arduino controller, a 3d printed print-in-place chain (download will be available soon) and a hobby knife on a gantry slider system. The celebratory hands were just the icing on the cake.

The balloons ride on a chain and sprocket conveyor belt. The machine starts spinning the balloons. The knife slowly makes it's way up the slider on its linear bearings towards the balloons. As soon as the knife is high enough, mayhem ensues. Balloons popping, confetti flying. True celebration!

I want to give a huge thank you to all that support me at the intersection of Art and Engineering!

If you would like to support me and the creation of future engineered art projects, please consider becoming a JBV Creative patreon member:
  / engineezy  

To see more details about this project along with the code for the machine, check out this post:
https://engineezy.com/blogs/project-d...

You can check out all my downloadable models here:
https://engineezy.com/

If you're interested in seeing my entire collection of work, look no further than here:
  / engineezy