Teaser: A confetti machine for much less.

Lauren loves confetti.

Several months ago, Lauren asked me if there were a way for us to drop confetti under the tent at our wedding reception. Confetti machines for weddings were really expensive to buy (read: around $6000), but she imagined I could build something where the confetti would be trapped like balloons under a net and gently be released upon the unsuspecting wedding guests.

Gently? I had other ideas. Over on the Make Blog, one of the How-To Tuesdays was this compressed air rocket launcher. Perfect. I was confident that I could turn it into our confetti launcher!

After a three hour adventure at Home Depot, some internet shopping at SparkFun, an evening of soldering, and an afternoon of gluing PVC together, I was ready for a small indoor test in our apartment. I shredded some newspaper as a substitute for the confetti and used our bicycle pump to “charge” it to about 20psi.

3-2-1. A push of the red button and poof! It rained “confetti.” And of course, there is video proof.