Exclusive | Meet Linus, the adorable vending machine king of Brooklyn building a boffo secret brand at just 8 years old

He’s the new vending machine king of Brooklyn — and Linus Piepmeyer hasn’t even finished the third grade.What began as a lesson about the value of money — and savings — has become a minor sensation on one block in Boerum Hill, where the 8-year-old boy with an artist’s eye has been hawking homemade Big Apple-themed buttons out of a gumball dispenser his dad snapped up on a whim.With his parents’ help, Piepmeyer spends his weekends cranking out his so-New York designs — from pigeons to pizza slices, to taxis, hot dogs and rats — packaging them in brightly-colored plastic capsules and hoping that passers-by will shell out two quarters a pop.So far, so good — since hanging out his shingle on Wyckoff Street in July, the school kid has sold hundreds of pins.“We’ve run out of room in his piggy bank from all the quarters,” mom Alison, 39, told The Post with a laugh.“Getting the money has been cool,” Linus told The Post, though he confessed right up front that when he heard about the idea, he had something slightly different in mind.

“I was hoping it could be a snack machine that we could fill with Cheetos or Twizzlers.”“During one conversation, the vending machine came up and it seemed like a tangible way to showcase how creative ideas and hard work can make money,” said Alison, founder of @Seen, a social media company, and the former chief marketing officer at Color Factory, the interactive art exhibition company.It was also the perfect project for Linus, who’s got a clear creative streak, his parents said.“Linus is always drawing stuff — he loves making comic books,” said dad Zach, 39, co-founder of Magical, an AI platform company.“When we talked to him about chores, we thought, ‘Should chores be for money — or do you do them because you’re part of this family?'” he recalled to The Post.“We decided maybe it’s better for Linus to feel like he’s making something — and that this will teach him the idea o...