Stressed about job security? Worried about making ends meet? Super Mario might be a plumber, but do you ever see him fixing pipes? No, and why would he when his world is filled with random blocks that spew gold coins? Apparently hoping for an early retirement, hacker Jonathan Whalen attempted to build a real-life version of a Super Mario Land question block that actually spits out coins.
The question box itself, and parts of the coin shooting mechanism, were all 3D-printed. But inside you’ll also find an electric stepper motor, a vibration sensor to detect when the box gets hit, and an Arduino Nano controlling all the hardware. But before you quit your day job to build one of these, there is a small catch: You need to first feed the box all the $1 coins it shoots out. Whatever bizarre laws govern the Mushroom Kingdom and its economy unfortunately don’t apply here.