Pez Blaster Shoots Candy Dangerously Fast

You could use a little pocket-sized Pez dispenser if you’re a humble, reserved person. Or, you could follow the example of [Backhaul Studios], and build a dangerously powerful blaster that shoots Pez fast enough to shatter them into pieces. Just don’t aim it at your own mouth.

As the video explains, Pez is really the perfect candy for this application. It’s compact, hard, and already designed to be dispensed via a magazine. It’s thus not a big stretch to set it up to be fired out of a pistol-like blaster. The build is of the flywheel type, where a pair of counter-rotating wheels fling the candy out at great speed. The wheels themselves are spun up to high speed with a pair of small brushless motors, running off hobby speed controllers and lithium-ion batteries. A simple trigger mechanism dispenses the rectangular candies into the wheel mechanism, sending them flying out of the blaster at will. It’s all 3D-printed, designed specifically for the purpose of high-speed candy delivery.

The video goes into great detail on the design, from the development of the TPU treads on the flywheels and other details that helped improve the effectiveness of the design. The final build shoots Pez fast enough that they practically detonate upon hitting a surface.

We’ve featured some innovative work in this space from [Backhaul Studios] before—the condiment cannon was really quite something. Video after the break.

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Candy Blaster Lets You Shoot PEZ At Your Friends

Nerf Blasters are great fun to play with, but you really shouldn’t eat the foam darts. Conversely, Pez dispensers are fussy and kind of boring, but the candy is a tasty treat. [Soloprototype] has presented us the best of both worlds, in the form of a 3D-printed Pez blaster, with a firm note that this toy is for grown-ups only.

Overall, the design is very similar to the Pez Shooter, a long-discontinued Pez dispenser design. It uses a basic pistol form factor, and accepts a magazine of Pez pellets loaded into the grip. The magazine itself is cut out of a regular Pez dispenser, to avoid reinventing the wheel. Pulling the trigger fires the Pez pellets with spring power, launching candy into the air.

We all love candy propelled at speed, though [Soloprototype] notes that some safety precautions should be observed. To avoid choking risks, it’s not recommended to allow children to play with the toy. Nor should it be fired at the face or mouth. The full list of safety measures is available on the project’s Cults3D page.

The Pez blaster is cool, but we’d love to see more work in this space. The world needs a Twinkie Trebuchet, or a Cadbury Catapult, to say nothing of the Butterfingers Balista. If you can think of other Age of Empires siege weapons that would be ideal for candy delivery, drop them in the comments below. Alternatively, consider the M&M launcher we’ve shared previously!

Augmented Reality Using Pez Dispensers

[Johan] really got himself out of a bind with this one.

After his son started playing AppMates, he desperately wanted the requisite figures to complete the experience. AppMates is an iPad game where a child drives a small plastic car around a virtual environment displayed on the touchscreen. Unfortunately for [Johan]’s son, the officially licensed Cars characters would take at least three months to make it to his home in Sweden. [Johan] did the next best thing and made his own.

[Johan] took a pair of Cars Pez dispensers and took off the figure. The bottom of the character was covered with a bit of plastic from the base of the Pez dispenser and a little bit of conductive foam and was added to the body. Now [Johan]’s son can drive his toys around Radiator Springs just like he could with the official figurines. There’s also the aspect of not making a child wait months for a bit of plastic, so we’ll call this one a win for [Johan].

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