IPO MADNESS - 2000

Try your luck on the Intenet Slot Machine.

Overview
Pull the slot machine lever to generate a random 5 letter URL (ie. www.ABCDE.com) which is then looked up online. If the URL is a working URL, then the lights go off and sounds play and you've made your IPO!

Prototype
IPO Madness is intrinsically linked to the massive surge of Internet E-Commerce companies. In an online world where venture capital controls the means of production, the strength of e-commerce solutions resides in user-friendly domain names, "e-catchy" slogans, and "e-branding". IPO Madness comments on the IPO giants by combining Internet domain name creation with the American symbol of wasted consumption and getting rich quick - a slot machine.

The idea for IPO Madness came about during the e-commerce frenzy of the late 1990s. Everyone was getting rich from the stock market on tech stocks and it was getting ridiculous - so I built this project to make fun of all the hype surrounding the Internet.

System
The system uses a flat panel monitor inside of the slot machine and a microcontroller that is getting input from the arm. Once the arm is triggered, the computer inside the machine generates the URL and then uses its net connection to search and see ifthe URL is a working site. If they hit a working URL, the lights go off and that site is logged online with an accompanying webcam picture of them.