Vending Machine Robot

By Matthew Thomas Beck

Click here for the story behind the build

Tech Stack

• Languages: Python, HTML, JavaScript
• Libraries: threading, queue, socket, numpy, opencv-python, openvino, pygame, RPi.GPIO, pigpio, pyserial, bcrypt, requests, python-dotenv
• Frameworks & Toolkits: Flask, Vite, Tailwind CSS, OpenVINO, OpenCV, Stripe
• Database: SQLite
• Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS EC2, NGINX
• Hardware: Raspberry Pi 4B, Intel NCS2, PiCamera Module 3, GPS, Pololu Maestro, dual H-bridge motor drivers, mecanum wheels with TPU rollers, welded 24-gauge steel chassis, 3D-printed PLA components

Basic Information

It started as a joke

"What if, instead of walking up to a vending machine, the vending machine rolled up to you?"

That question turned into a four-month, eleven-person build at Rowdy Creators: a mobile snack-dispensing robot paired with a full digital storefront. Customers browse snacks online, pay through Stripe, receive a one-time code, and redeem it on the robot, which finds them with edge AI, opens its lid, and dispenses their purchase

I wore a lot of hats on this one

On the engineering side, I cut and welded the 24-gauge steel chassis, designed the electrical system across three iterative layouts, and kept the 3D printer running through two late-night breakdowns. On the software side, I architected the robot's codebase, integrated the GPS, camera, NCS2, Maestro, and motor controllers into a shared runtime, wrote the mecanum wheel kinematics and return-to-home algorithm, built the TCP socket bridge that connects the website to the robot, and developed the purchase sequence that ties payment confirmation to physical dispense. I also served as an architecture consultant on the web frontend

The robot strafes and rotates in place on mecanum wheels, uses OpenVINO-powered person detection running on the NCS2 to find and follow customers, and hands off seamlessly from a pastel storefront to a welded steel machine rolling across campus

This was the highlight of college for me, not the football games or the differential equations, but the pure joy of building something absurdly ambitious with people I was privileged to work alongside. Like all projects, there were bumps in the road (cardboard prototypes, jammed extruders, signal interference, burn-through welds), but it mostly went so well that I will be drawn to collaborative work for the rest of my life

Team: Samantha Machado, Prince Patel, Syan Shirazi, Samuel Saylor, Cayden Hutcheson, Tri Nguyen, Adeyemi Akanbi, Ryler Collins, Victoria Adams, and Anthony Nguyen

Built With

• python