Flavored popcorn vending machine

• Main Authors: Ang, Geraldine D., Garcia, Derrick C., Nava, Rommel Jay P., Tan, Charmain Joyce C., Wu, Henry Jefferson G.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2006
• Subjects: Popcorn; Cookery (Popcorn); Popcorn industry; Vending machines; Corn > Dispersal
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14528
• Institution: De La Salle University

Nearly everyone loves popcorn. With low product cost and high customer appeal, popcorn is one of the largest and fastest growing segments of the snack food industry. Serving popcorn is currently done manually, as well as the transaction for it. This paper aims to make the dispensing more consistent as compared to the current method wherein the operator could spill more over the secondary packaging, or to not fill the container up to the brim. This vending machine automatically cooks the popcorn, dispenses the bag along with the corresponding amount of sachets per transaction. Mechanical manipulation and incessant experimentation polished the appropriate makeup of the dispensing components, while pneumatics and a Central Processing Unit handled the control of the dispersion of air as well as the communications between the inputs: smart card, push buttons with the outputs: the dispensing of consistent amount of popcorn, bag and sachets. It also utilizes smart cards for transaction to further modernize the current way of how vending machines transact, which is through coin or bill collecting. The influence of existing popcorn vending machines & other enhancements such as the use of smart card further improved the development of the popcorn vending machine and the team believes the fruit of this labor could influence burgeoning smaller scale vending machines in the future, especially in the Philippines.