Our group was able to get our hands on two old printers and had to do something with them. There wasn’t much electronics to work with so we decided to focus on the non-electronic mechanisms that we were able to trigger with what we have and to have fun! So this was what we were thinking:

This is how far we got today. Terese and I managed to get the top sliding part(the cartridge holders) to slide across, then smash into & turn on the switches, which then set the bottom part(paper feeder) going and shooting out pieces of paper bills. A needle was attached onto each cartridge holder on the inside so that when the holders smash inwards, the needles would also pop the balloon, making an explosion of confetti (tiny polystyrene foam balls). We didn’t take any videos cus all hands were on deck(holding wires or trying to hold something in place)…

The back – we powered both of the paper feeders on just one power source. We weren’t sure whether it will power also the top sliders and didn’t want anything to explode so used another power supply for the top part.

The magical part.

Everything was going fine and we were going to work on the finishing touches the next day and

This happened.

Due to intensive testings and aging of the band that runs on the gears & pulls my cartridge holder, BROKE
It was so bad that I wasn’t able to pull it back together…:(
Nor could I replace it because of THIS:

The pieces of loose string (that made up the band) were stuck and got tangled up with the gear.
You can tell how unhappy I was ‘cus I didn’t even feel like getting my camera out, haha

We were also thinking to attach a piece of rollable paper to the cartridge holder so that it unrolls and reveals the secret message when the cartridge holder slides inward & pulls. Also party poppers that goes off at set times when the slider goes across but it was impossible to find them?

It’s a major bummer but we’ll manage to figure something else out, hopefully, by Tuesday!