Ok, after walking by that old 7Up machine in the makerspace every day for like four months, I finally ordered a key and opened it up. It’s a little bit of a mess inside, with some leaking sodas and many cans that expired in 2022. And sadly no big treasure - the bill collector was empty, but there’s about $8 in change in the exchanger.
I would REALLY love for someone to figure out how to make it work well in our space. I think @Aaron was interested in checking out the refrigerator part of the unit to make sure it’s working OK. But would anyone else want to try working with him on the unit? I’d love to figure out how we integrate an NFC reader so people can tap their badges, get a soda, and we bill out at the end of the month the few charges. Maybe an AccessLite reader? Or a generic NFC reader with a Raspberry Pi that API calls our Ubiquiti equipment to look up the person? (a Raspberry Pi or ESP32 seems prudent, so we could watch the signals for soda vend and refund button hit, to only charge if a product is given out).
In the grand scheme of things, it might not seem like hacking a soda machine is best BUT it does give us great data and experience with how to handle card reading outside of door access. Like, can we later use card reads for machines that require extra training? Or tie one to a Fastenal vending machine to vend and weigh 3d printing filament? Or maybe even a set of outside lockers for community members to get 24/7 access to a tool from the community tool library. All those projects revolve around how we integrate our badge reading into other systems.
@paul , this might be up your alley too!
Photos from vending machine:
