Aurduino mini Zoltar like Fourtune Teller Machine help

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello,

My name's chris, I'm a puppet builder/puppeteer looking into getting into animatronics.

I plan on getting an Arduino soon in hopes to build something like this:

Now before I do anything I want to clarify that My version would be less complicated in terms of character movement. I wanna start with a head with glowing eyes and a jaw that slowly moves up and down. the jaw wouldn't be synced to any diologe, just slowly opening and closing with instrumental music playing. All the artistic fabrication I can accomplish but its getting everything to work that's daunting. But i am willing to learn.

First off here's what i'm looking to accomplish:

A coin is inserted into a coin slot
music starts, the eyes on a puppet head light up, and the jaw moves slowly for about a 25 seconds
music stops and it dispenses a card/ ticket.

Before I go any further, I wanna ask, is something like this possible with an arduino? I'm aware I'd need to get extra equiptment like a speaker, coin mech, card dispenser etc. but as someone with no robotics experience but is willing to learn, is there anyone with advice specific to something like this?

Thanks,
Chris

2

Before I go any further, I wanna ask, is something like this possible with an arduino?

With the right external circuits/hardware, yes.

is there anyone with advice specific to something like this?

Take it one step at a time.

Connect a coin acceptor. Learn to read from the device, to know when the appropriate amount of money has been inserted.

Disconnect that, and connect an MP3 shield. Learn to make that device play some music.

Disconnect that, and connect a servo. Learn to make the servo rotate back and forth.

Now, integrate the servo into the animatronic, and make the servo move the right amount to open and close the mouth.

Disconnect, and repeat for the eye LEDs.

Disconnect and repeat for the ticket dispenser.

Now that everything works independently, connect two things, and make sure that the code for the two devices is merged together correctly.

Add another device and more code. Test, test, and retest.

Repeat until everything works, or you are bored with the project.