Coin - Operated Rice Vending Machine
Ricjenn P. Conje Carl Matthew T. Guitguiten John Ernesto D. Madumma
Adviser(s): Dr. Rachel M. Chong and Engr. Lotis P. Patunob
Electronics Engineering Department
Cebu Institute of Technology – University
N. Bacalso Avenue, Cebu City, Cebu
Email: ricjennconje98@gmail.com charmeee12345@gmail.com johnernestomadumma@gmail.com
Abstract—Nowadays, people living especially in rural areas or
provinces, they cant easily go to supermarkets and malls to buy
rice to feed for their families, since they are living far from urban
areas and industrial sites. With this rice vending machine, they
can easily buy rice without travelling too far from their respective
homes at any time. The rice vending machine has a coin slot,
an automatic dispensing mechanism and a GSM monitoring
module wherein the customer can choose a type of rice variant,
pay through inserting the coin to the coin slot, the dispensing
mechanism (servomotor) opens at a certain time in dispensing
the rice, a monitoring system that has a fixed weight (10kg) each
for rice variant. With this, it would enable the owner to know the
supply and availability of rice, whether the container is still full
or almost empty, in such that the GSM module would notify and
send SMS to the owner that the container must be refilled. The
container of the rice is tightly sealed and kept cleaned always
so that the rice can be freshly reserved without putting it into
waste. Thus, ensuring the safety and hygiene of the rice. Now
that they can easily buy rice through the vending machine, they
don’t need to travel too far and waste their time.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A rice vending machine is a mechanism that is able to
dispense rice that is equivalent to how much amount being
paid by the customer. The current invention relates to a rice
vending machine that includes a multi-variant rice type, a coin
operated paying unit, an automatic dispensing mechanism, a
GSM monitoring system, and a sealed container that ensures
the safety and freshness of the rice, making it possible to
adjust the time for the mechanism to dispense rice. Generally,
the rice is stored and reserved at a normal temperature and
a clean container(cite) thus protecting it from dehydrating
and skinning. One project study, a single variant rice vending
machine(cite), that could only dispense one type of rice per
kilo yet it does not have monitoring system that would show
the supply of rice. Another project study, a multi-variant rice
vending machine [?], that dispenses two or more types of rice
but can be stored small amount of rice since the container
is small. It does not have monitoring system as well. Now
that we have our current project, we can replace the previous
studies by improving the entire mechanism with a monitoring
system that would notify the owner if the availability of rice
in the container is almost empty, by refilling it. In the previous
studies, their method of dispensing the rice is per kilo only.
Knowing this, it must be improved not only in per kilo, but
also to the equivalent amount of coin inserted. With these
improvements, we can be able to save labour costs, save time
and money in travelling far places especially in rural areas.
II. S ERVO M OTOR
In [?], this motor uses pulse code modulation in depending
its rotation. The angle of each rotation is proportional to the
pulses. This servo motor has three types of rotational. First
is the Positional Rotation Servo which means the output shaft
rotates 180 degrees or half of a circle. It has a gear mechanism
that helps in preventing turning beyond these limits to protect
the sensor by using the physical stops. The second type is
Continuous Rotation Servo this servo uses command signal
in reading the rotation which means the servo will turn to
its clockwise or counterclockwise direction when commanded
depending at its varying speed. The last type is the Linear
Rotation Servo this servo is just the same with the positional
rotation servo but with some additional gears (rack or some
pinion mechanism) to help in changing the output from its
circular output to back-and-forth.
III. S INGLE VARIANT R ICE V ENDING M ACHINE
In [?], it is a full intelligent quantitative, real time process-
ing, weighing, packaging, settlement money vending machine
that uses a central control system which sets the working
process. It provides 24 hours of uninterrupted sales and saves
manpower cost. The main advantage is having guarantee on
food safety and sanitation.
IV. M ULTI - FUNCTIONAL RICE VENDING MACHINE
In [?], is suitable for selling rice automatically, the entire
system includes an electronically controlled operated system
that integrates the operation for dispensing rice and other oper-
ation in the system. It uses voice shopping system that enables
the purchaser to prompt various operations of the shopping. It
also includes a surveillance camera for the security. The main
advantage of this system is that it has security systems that
can help the owner in monitoring his system.
V. M ETHODOLOGY OR P ROPOSED M ETHOD
This study proposed to design a coin - operated rice vending
machine with monitoring system. Fig.1 shows the overall
framework of the system. There are four input variables, coin
slot and pushbuttons, that are collected using Arduino Mega.
Then the microcontroller will evaluate the input variables and
will generate a command to output the variables namely: LCD,
servo motor, GSM module, and buzzer.
 This block 1 shows the application of the entire system. VII. DATA AND R ESULTS
Fig.2 shows the flowchart of the system. The buyer can A. Average Pulses of Each Coin
choose the type of rice he wants. Then, the LCD displays
Table I shows the different minimum and maximum number
the total coins inserted and the weight measurement. If the
of pulses for each coin. Both old and new 1 Php coins have
desired amount of payment reached, the servo motor opens to
a minimum of 2 pulses and a maximum of 4 pulses. Old 5
a certain time that would dispense the rice he chose to the
Php coin have 10 – 19 pulses. On the other hand, the new 5
exact weight measurement. The buzzer triggers indicating that
Php coin have 15 – 17 pulses. Old 10 Php coin have 25 – 35
the dispensing of rice had stopped. The GSM module notifies
pulses. On the other hand, the new 10 Php coin have 25 –
the owner of the supply of rice that are left.
38 pulses. There are different number of pulses for each coin.
VI. D ESCRIPTION OF E XPERIMENTS Thus, we can accurately identify the type of coin.
A. Coin Slot Evaluation VIII. C ONCLUSION
The objective of this experiment is to determine the accu- This study designed a coin operated rice vending machine
racy of the coin slot. The material to be used would be: with an improved dispensing process and a monitoring system.
• Universal coin slot
The container of the rice was designed to accomodate a
• Arduino
fixed maximum capacity of 10 Kg rice. In the dispensing
• Coins(old and new coins; 1, 5, 10)
process, the amount of rice inside the container was subtracted
equivalent to the amount of coin inserted. This indicates that
The procedures to be followed are:
it has a monitoring system that would enable them to know
1) Program the universal coin slot to recognize the coins the exact supply of rice that are left which can be seen in the
by pressing appropriate buttons at the side of the coin LCD. For the dispensing of rice, it had an improved process
slot that could dispense not only per kilo of rice, but also to the
2) Using the PWM pins, connect the coin slot to the equivalent amount of coin inserted precisely.
arduino
3) Insert coin
4) Record if the universal coin slot detects the coins ac-
cording to its true value and its pulse
5) Repeat procedure 3 for at least 100 trials for every coin
(1, 5 , 10)
6) Calculate the accuracy for each coin
Xnew − Xold
E= × 100% (1)
Xnew
A = 100 − Error (2)
B. Determination of the Transfer Function
The objective is to determine how much rice is dispensed
per time duration the valve is open. The materials used are:
• Servo motor
• Arduino
• Weighing Scale

The procedure to be done:

1) Set the servomotor to allow rice flow for a certain
amount of time
2) Record the amount dispensed on a table
3) Repeat step 1 for at least 15 times
4) Calculate the accuracy for each weight
rP
(x − x̄)2
P = (3)
n
Let
x = givenweights (4)
x̄ = meanof allweights (5)
n = numberof trials (6)
 Fig. 1. Block Diagram of the Proposed System

Fig. 2. Flow Chart of the System

TABLE I
AVERAGE PULSES OF EACH COIN

1 Php old 1 Php new 5 Php old 5 Php new 10 Php old 10 Php new
Average 2.84 2.69 12.76 15.10 29.79 30.52
Minimum 2.00 2.00 10.00 15.00 25.00 26.00
Maximum 4.00 4.00 19.00 17.00 35.00 38.00