This bubblewrap popping machine definitely goes into the oddly satisfying range for me! This must be my most satisfying machine yet. I while ago I got some packages that came in bubble wrap and while I was popping that I started thinking. There must be an easier way to pop bubble wrap.
I ordered a large roll of bubblewrap in the size that (I thought) I needed and started designing. The first design idea I had was a bit similar to that of an inkjet printer. Feeding the material though and than running a roller from side to side to pop the bubbles. But; when I did a quick first test I found out that I couldn’t pop the bubbles this way. The small dimension of the roller gave the air room to move and wouldn’t pop any.
So, over to design number two. By this time I learned two things:
Bubblewrap is not designed to pop.
Its hard to estimate if it works so I need to test it.
My design number two has two rolls that roll against each other to pop all the bubbles. I also made a second version that has two gears to test the difference between the two. I expected the gears to work a lot better than the rollers because of the crunching effect in between the teeth. But I couldn’t be more wrong. The gears pull the bubblewrap through but don’t crunch it at all. So: rolls it is.
Now I knew what the best way to pop them is I started building the final machine. Go check out the video to see the result.
