This PEZ Launcher Flings Candy Into Eager Mouths at High Velocity

PEZ candies are really yummy — do yourself a favor and go buy a 5lb bag online, then thank me later. But in addition to being tasty, they’re also fun as a result of the iconic PEZ dispenser designs that have come and gone over the decades. There is something incredibly satisfying about the mechanical action of a PEZ dispenser and that led Davis DeWitt, a talented prop builder and proprietor of Backhaul Studios, to create this fully automatic, high-velocity PEZ candy launcher.

DeWitt previously built a condiment cannon capable of throwing those little individual serving jelly and syrup packs you find at diners and hotel continental breakfast spreads. That was a two-handed affair suitable for intense firefights and DeWitt needed a smaller, holsterable companion for quickdraw snack duels to complement it. This PEZ launcher is the result and it is a masterpiece.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, DeWitt built this PEZ launcher around existing wheel-based thrower designs, like what you might see in a tennis ball launcher. Two wheels, driven by drone-style brushless DC motors and with grippy TPU surfaces, grab onto any PEZ candy that gets close enough. The wheels spin at very high rates, so they fling the PEZ down a barrel-like chute at tremendous speed (60mph+) as soon as they get a grip.

To get the PEZ candies to the wheels reliably and automatically, DeWitt designed a magazine-fed system with inspiration from the PEZ dispensers themselves. A spring pushes up the candies to a feed ramp just behind the wheels and a mechanism pushes the next candy in line into their grip. Originally, DeWitt used a solenoid to push the PEZ into the wheels, but found that it had trouble retracting without binding. Ultimately, he switched to a servo-actuated rack-and-pinion mechanism that operates under power in both directions, overcoming the friction and binding.

That allows for automatic launching, as the rack-and-pinion can keep moving back and forth as long as the wielder tells it to. DeWitt added a Waveshare ESP32-S3 Mini development to control that action, along with the wheel motors and the electronic sight. That sight serves double duty, keeping PEZ on target and providing status information. It is an OLED with the backing removed, making it transparent. A reticle in the center helps with aiming and icons on the edges indicate the status.

The body of the launcher was 3D-printed, painstakingly sanded, and then painted. In DeWitt’s trademark style, weathering makes it look like something from a gritty Hollywood sci-fi movie. Now DeWitt just needs to wait for Halloween and some brave trick-or-treaters willing to risk their teeth for some delicious PEZ.