High Speed DIY M&M Sorting Machine Uses iPhone Brain

HughPickens.com writes: Canoe Tech reports that M&M sorting machines are a popular project for people who like combining electronics, programming and machine building. Most of them send a single M&M down a chute to a simple color sensor where the color sensor will then take a second or two to figure out the color. A servo motor will then rotate a chute that will direct the M&M into the correct pot. But a new project created by the nameless blogger behind the reviewmylife blog that uses an iPhone 5s as its brain is capable of sensing different colors and so can "sort" the M&Ms as they fall past. The iPhone communicates the information via Bluetooth to an Arduino board, which in turn fires off the correct electro magnet controlled gate. One practical application of the sorter could be creating a bowl of M&Ms — with all the brown ones removed.

Comments

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be getting old. I did this in college 20+ years ago in my process automation course. I assure you that color-sorting photocells don't take a second or two to figure out the color.

It was all done with standard industrial stuff on Allen Bradley PLCs.

People do this for a hobby? I don't get it.

Re:I don't get it

[NatasRevol]

They could use a PLC. Like they did 20+ years ago...

Re: I don't get it

[jd2112]

I'm hosting a Van Halen concert you insensitive clod!

Re:I don't get it

[thegarbz]

You don't get that some people's hobby is to learn about electronics and build things for their own benefit?

That's quite sad.

Practical

[twitnutttt]

One practical application of the sorter could be creating a bowl of M&Ms — with all the brown ones removed.

Wow, and to think that until I read this line, I was thinking to myself, "How useless."

One Potential Application For Rock Bands

[HughPickens.com]

"One practical application of the sorter could be creating a bowl of M&Ms - with all the brown ones removed."

According to Dan and Chip Heath, that's just what rock band Van Halen demand in one of the riders to their standard contract. The band's "M&M clause" was written into its contract to serve a very speciïc purpose. It was called Article 126, and it read as follows: "There will be no brown M&M's in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." The article was buried in the middle of countless technical speciïcations. When David Lee Roth would arrive at a new venue, he'd immediately walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. "Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error," said Roth. "They didn't read the contract. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show."

Re:One Potential Application For Rock Bands

[OzPeter]

The article was buried in the middle of countless technical specifications.

Last year I was working on a Stacker/Reclaimer (Sort of but not like this) and was reading through the 500+ page customer specification. Buried in the middle of the electrical section of the spec was a paragraph that said something along the lines of:

An ashtray shall be welded to the side of the operators control room.

When I saw that I thought it was probably something similar to the M&M clause.

Re:One Potential Application For Rock Bands

[Matheus]

I hate to be a spoil sport but I have a copy of their rider.

While their stated intention is true (well at least that they stated it) but the details are quite wrong. The M&M caveat was included in the Backstage Rider which is generally handled by hospitality staff (for such a large production at least). It is not "buried in countless technical specifications" as this article suggests. The terms are also not quite so stated: "M&M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES)." This being in a rider whose overriding terms stating that the contract "...may be voided by (Van Halen) unless fully executed..." the surrounding forfeiture of the show may occur but not with full payment (only possible forfeit of paid deposits, expenditures).

Mr. Roth may have had good intentions when he had that written into their rider BUT his prima donna nature was showing in his lack of understanding of how the show was actually being executed. Specifically those responsible for procuring and maintaining backstage hospitality have absolutely *nothing to do with anything technical what-so-ever and so correlating a brown M&M to an issue with the production was misguided more likely incidental.

If I were young again!

[twitnutttt]

If only this technology had existed to create bowls of green-only M&M's when I was a teenager, maybe I could've gotten laid!

Does It Filter Out the Defective Ones?

[Scarletdown]

Sure, this can sort by colors. But, is it capable of filtering out the Ws?

wait, I want them!

[Virtucon]

with all the brown ones removed.

The brown ones are naked!
   

Perler Bead Sorting?

[Jason Levine]

This makes me wonder if it would be possible to build a machine to sort perler beads. For those who don't know, these are small (under 5mm) plastic beads. You place them on a tray to make a design (Doctor Who, One-up mushroom from Super Mario Brothers, etc), then iron the beads so they melt and fuse. It's an inexpensive (relatively speaking) craft that can be really fun because of the wide range of design possibilities.

The major problem is that the cheapest way to get beads is by the tub. This is - as you might expect - a tub of various colors of beads... all mixed together. Want a black bead? You need to hunt through the tub to find one. Or you can do what we do and manually sort through thousands of beads and group similar colors together in another container.

The M&M sorting machine makes me wonder if you could make a machine that would sort the beads. You could even simplify it and only match a specific color bead. Incoming beads would either be sent to the "matching" tray or would go to the "doesn't match" pile. (The latter could be resorted to match another color, repeating until no beads were left.)

Anyone into robotics know how much a DIY project like this would cost and what level of expertise this would require? This might be an interesting project to tackle with my older son who is in his middle school Lego Robotics team.