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This creepy coin machine brings uncanny fun to a hospital waiting room [1]
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Date: 2025-07-11
A fascinatingly creepy coin-operated machine offers entertainment in Guy's Hospital waiting room. If you're watching time crawl while waiting to be seen for a twisted ankle, infected nostril, or other minor ailment, this unique distraction can help pass the time.
The game features an animatronic nurse who spins in circles, holding out a cup. As Tim Hunkin, the machine's creator, explains, "The game is to drop the coin into the nurse's cup as she passes the coin slot." Three buttons let you select different rotation speeds for varying difficulty levels, making it "quite addictive as a game."
Drop a coin into her cup as she rotates, and something unexpected happens: she tips the coin into the mouth of an animatronic patient, whose frown transforms into a smile as his head spins to reveal a new expression.
The seemingly simple mechanism required considerable engineering finesse. "Coins have sharp edges and tend to dent things they fall on," Hunkin notes. His original concept had coins potentially missing the patient's mouth, but he opted for precision instead: "In its final form, the nurse stops in a precise position and every coin goes into the mouth."
Even that proved challenging. "It took ages to get the coins to flow reliably," Hunkin recalls. "With coins, the key thing seems to be to remove energy – the slower they are moving, the less far they can bounce." He even discovered that a scratched polythene cup caused unexpected bounces, ultimately switching to stainless steel for reliability.
Beyond the mechanics, the piece carries subtle commentary. As Hunkin reveals, "There's so much fuss about nurse's pay and productivity, and private financing of parts of the NHS. In the end, I left it subtle, but the idea of the insatiable patient and the bottomless pit of NHS funding are there for anyone that likes analysing stuff."
This eerie yet amusing display provides just enough distraction to make the wait more bearable, while cleverly embedding commentary on healthcare funding beneath its playful surface.
See also: How to spin a coin for two minutes
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