LEGO ATM: Plastic Bricks, Real Money

It dispenses cash and coins. It accepts Visa and MasterCard. And it's made out of plastic bricks. While it might not be rolled out en masse to the nation's retail banks any time soon, Ron McRae's homemade ATM just might be the best cash machine ever assembled from a bucket full of LEGO parts, a HiTechnic IRLink and a Cadatex RFID Sensor.

Programed in Not eXactly C (NXC), McRae's ATM has a bill scanner that can be adjusted to recognize any type of bill, a numeric keypad that functions through a combination of touch and light sensors, and it makes change for bills inserted outside of card transactions. The machine also maintains a customer database and - for the sake of security - will retain an ATM card if the wrong PIN code is entered three times.