Tag Archives: claw machine

Omega Mart’s Claw Machine Is Filled With Unwrapped Butter

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Art collective Meow Wolf’s immersive art exhibit Omega Mart in Las Vegas is full of surprises, and new to the store’s lineup of WTF-ery comes Butter Frenzy 2 – a claw machine full of unwrapped sticks of butter you can win. You know, I was just thinking the other day how great it would feel to win a loose stick of butter in an arcade game! Wait, no – no, I wasn’t.

The machine plays like any other claw machine, except instead of trying to grab a stuffed animal, you’re trying to grab sticks of soft, room-temperature butter. Fun AND delicious! Of course, the way the claw appears to cut through the butter will certainly prove a true test of skill. If you can manage to win a warm stick of butter out of a claw machine, you should have absolutely no problem with Pokémon plushies.

What’s next, claw machines filled with flour, eggs, and sugar? Hopefully, otherwise how else am I supposed to win all the ingredients I need to make cookies? And just imagine how rewarding those cookies will taste! Probably as rewarding as cookies can that were made with almost no flour, eggs, or sugar.

[via BoingBoing]

A Desktop Rocket Shaped Candy-Grabbing Claw Machine

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Candy: it maintains my sugar high at a suitable level, so I don’t have to take a nap at my desk midday. And you know what’s better than regular candy? Candy, you’ve won. Enter the $44 Rocket Candy Grabber available from Firebox, a desktop claw machine you fill with candy, then empty with skill.

The Rocket Candy Grabber is powered by 3 AA batteries and has LEDs that light up, and it plays “intense” carnival music while you test your skill at grabbing candy. Frustrated you aren’t grabbing the candy fast enough? Just crack the thing open like Humpty Dumpty. Just don’t go asking all the king’s horses and all the king’s men for assistance putting it back together if you do.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be big or strong enough to accommodate full-size candy bars, which is a shame because they’re all I eat. I don’t have time to unwrap all those teensy snack-size candies; I need the real deal. King size? Even better. You know, just the other day, I started a petition for candy companies to start manufacturing California king-sized candy bars.

Sega’s new app lets you remotely win prizes from a real claw machine in Japan

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If you've ever wanted to play around on a claw machine without all the hassle of leaving your house -- or even standing up -- technology has come through for you. Sega has launched a new mobile apps, Sega Catcher Online, that lets you do exactly that...

DIY Claw Machine: Insert Effort

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Ryan Bates is working on a unicorn in the arcade world: a fair claw machine. Powered by an Arduino Mega, the machine isn’t easy to build, but at least it won’t screw you or your customers.

diy_arduino_claw_machine_by_ryan_bates_retro_built_games_1zoom in

To reduce costs, Ryan built the claw machine partly out of widely available 3D printer components. That should also make it easier to repair and upgrade. His full build cost him about $470 (USD), but he says you can cut it down to around $210 by using wood instead of aluminum extrusions for the frame and ditching bells and whistles like the coin slot and LCD.

Ryan says his machine relies on skill instead of luck, so it rewards repeated play. He’s obviously had a lot of practice on the machine, but he says beginners usually manage to grab only one or two candies in a session. So it’s possible to make a profit off of the machine, though it’ll take a while. On the other hand, you can go nuts and make the claw machine super easy for the player. It’s your machine!

Here’s Ryan’s abridged guide for the machine’s first version:

Check out Ryan’s Instructables page for a more detailed guide. He’s also planning on selling a DIY kit, so keep an eye on his shop Retro Build Games if you’re interested.

[via TechCrunch]

Claw Machine for Foodies: Make a Play for Your Lobster Dinner

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Like your seafood fresh? Then it doesn’t get any fresher than the ‘Submarine Catcher’, which is basically a claw machine where you’re supposed to literally catch the lobster of your dreams. This isn’t the only brand of lobster claw machines in town, since there’s also another one that goes by ‘Lobster Zone.’

Lobster Claw Machine

To be honest, I find it a little sad that restaurants feel the need to add the novelty of people catching their own food before they eat it, as if it were a game. If I were a lobster, I’d prefer to be grabbed from the aquarium and chopped up accordingly right away, rather than have some spindly plastic arms scratching at me every few minutes or so. But hey, that’s just me – and I’m no lobster.

Diner Carolina Sullivan tried her hand at the machine and scored a lobster after on her first try. She said of the experiences: “Chef cooked my prize and served it on my table with a delicious butter sauce.” Hmm. To each their own, I suppose.

[via The Atlantic via Laughing Squid]