C-3PO Dispenses PEZ and Teaches Math

Gyula’s younger brother was always asking him for help with his math problems, and while he tries to help, they end playing and getting distracted. Most big brothers would have left it at that, but Gyula took things several steps further and made a robotic system to help him learn.

The resulting device is a PEZ dispenser in the form of C-3PO that asks George, the little brother, math problems on the computer. It then rewards him with a treat for every correct answer, or tells him the answer if incorrect.

The C-3PO dispenser is controlled by a small servo motor, which pulls it open via an Arduino Nano, but the bulk of the processing is handled by a computer running Ozeki 10 for these speech interactions.