This Giant Automatic Hand Sanitizer Dispenser Is Insane. Nose Boi!

Do you remember when the coronavirus first starting making the news, roughly 20 years ago? It was a simpler time when we were still full of naiveté and a childish belief that a silly little virus couldn’t possibly be much to worry about. But soon grocery stores were running out of toilet paper, bottled water for some reason, and, of course, hand sanitizer. Fortunately, toilet paper is usually in stock these days and the taps in our homes never stopped running. Hand sanitizer, however, is still very useful. That’s why YouTuber The Tape Waster built Nose Boi, which is a giant, insane, nose-shaped hand sanitizer dispenser.

You’ve probably already guessed that this is a tongue-in-cheek kind of project. The hilariously absurd infomercial-style Noise Boi video should have made that much obvious. But it is still a completely functional hand sanitizer dispenser — just one that resembles a gigantic nose that drips snot-like sand sanitizer into your eagerly waiting hands. While Nose Boi is definitely a gag, we could see something like this being helpful in public spaces, as it might actually get people to use hand sanitizer more frequently and combat COVID-19. Granted, it does dispense a concerning amount of hand sanitizer each time it’s triggered; but that just means it’s extra effective, right?

This project started with the construction of that giant nose enclosure. It was made from thick foam that was stacked and glued together to create a huge chunk that could be carved into the shape of a nose. After the sculpting was finished, the foam was coated in epoxy and then covered with nice flesh color paint. Hand sanitizer is dispensed from a reservoir using a small peristaltic pump, which runs on mains power through a relay. That relay is triggered by an Arduino board, which uses a photoresistor to detect when you’ve placed your hand under the nostril. The Arduino also activates a SparkFun WAV Trigger board that plays pre-recorded sound clips that are stored on a microSD card. The sound clips are appropriately gross. Nose Boi!