Ever feel like you’re just spinning your wheels at work? Well Blake Fall-Conroy’s “Minimum Wage Machine” found at MAKE is quite literally a mechanical interpretation of unfulfilling labor. The artist explains:

The minimum wage machine pays the user minimum wage in real-time in pennies– the smallest unit of currency in the US. Being in NY, with minimum wage at $7.15 an hour, this equates to 1 penny every 5.035 seconds. The machine has a crank attached to an antique change sorting machine (circa 1913, ebay) and by belt to a small DC motor (salvaged from a printer). The crank turns the motor’s shaft which, in turn, acts as a small generator. The voltage produced goes through a 5V regulator and powers a Basic Stamp. It also powers a stepper motor (same printer) moving a small wheel at the mouth of the change sorter and a small motor inside the change reservoir of the machine. [...] So, being powered by the crank, by the user’s own energy, the machine only pays if the user performs work.