New York Hot Dog Experience

2022-03-14 | By bekathwia

License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Arduino

As part of YouTube Makers Secret Santa this year, I created a miniature New York City hotdog cart, complete with electronic and 3D printed toppings dispensers. I made the machine for Colin Furze, a popular UK YouTuber known for outrageous engineering creations, to help immerse his senses in the NYC experience. The build uses three servos, a PWM motor driver board, audio FX board for playing back ambient audio I recorded, and two microcontrollers– one to poll the sensor and buttons while the other drives an LED matrix display.

The hot dog travels down a set of conveyor rollers, where a photocell detects its shadow and begins the toppings dispensing process. First mustard is squeezed out of a bottle by being bent over a fulcrum, and the 3D mechanism wiggles back and forth to apply the mustard in a zigzag pattern. After it leaves the mustard station, the hotdog moves down the roller ramp to the next station that tips out some onion sauce atop the dog.

Food art stickers adorn the machine, and it even has a tiny hot dog stand umbrella I customized with my CNC vinyl cutter. The main body of the machine is made from acrylic sheet that I cut on a laser cutter. Colin unboxes the “NYC hot dog experience” on his YouTube channel. Polymer clay pretzels complete the look, even though they didn’t make it into the box going to Colin’s.

Although this is a cartoonishly over-the-top project, the source code, circuit diagram, and audio file are all available so you can learn to make your own projects with the individual elements.

Bill of Materials (Digi-Key cart):