I went to a shoe store.  I was looking for a pair of sky blue shoes but they didn't seem to have my size.  They had a claw machine, but it was broken.  This actually worked to my advantage.  It went up and down automatically and repeatedly, and the claw end was different.  I got something every time.  I started using anything available to feed into it, including tearing off little corners of cardboard to use as coins.  I emptied the machine.