Anti-Entropy Machine. M&M color sorter

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Sierra College Mechatronics program Mech 90 final project. M&M sorter using Picaxe micro-controller.
The goal for the class was to design, create, and program our own project using a specific micro controller called a Picaxe. Aside from using the same micro controller we were free to build what we wanted.
The hopper servo rotates a plate in the hopper that grabs a single candy and transports it to the chute that sits above the sensor. A small vibration motor is attached to the chute to help the candy move along (that's the annoying buzzing). Above the sensor sits a tube that has an infrared emitter opposite a phototransistor. The IR setup is used as a switch, when a candy breaks the beam it knows a candy is present. The sensor is an RGB sensor with an LED. The LED lights and the sensor gets a color reading. As part of my program I have color readings for each candy, the senses color is compared to a table and the correct cup is determined. The hopper servo rotates again to get another candy, at the same time the candy is pushed toward the sorting chute. The candy is sorted and the process begins again.
The main micro controller is a Picaxe 28x2, the color sensing is done by a TCS34725 RGBC sensor from Adafruit, I have an infra red emitter paired with a phototransistor to sense when there is a candy above the color sensor, the annoying buzz is a vibration motor on the chute from the hopper to the color sensor to help move the candy along, the hopper servo is a Hitec HS422, the sorting servo is a Hitec HS485HB, the OLED screen is a 20x4 OLED also from Picaxe paired with one of their daughter boards to use serial communication to the OLED, the circuit board is a proto-perf board from Adafruit, the metal structure and rack and pinion system are from ServoCity and are made by Actobotics, all of the acrylic pieces I designed and built myself, the wood base is birch with a mahogany frame stained, lacquered, and buffed by myself.

[@finster101]

Probably one of the prettiest M&M sorters I've seen. Well done. Also I like the 'ding' the metal bowls make when the M&M hits them.

[@johnv2035]

That's a very polite robot to be asking for candy so nicely

[@ScottGilliland]

Everyone knows that experimental apparatus look better on a well-finished mahogany base - just look at any scientific piece from the 1800's. And the metal bins make the perfect noise. Well done!

[@Bobcat_Cal]

Looks great - I did notice that at the green bin, the delivery chute seemed to hitch as the feed arm drew back. Seemed like it happened repeatedly and consistently. The 'ting' of each M&M hitting the bin seemed like a perfect bit of 'punctuation' to each drop. Really well done!

[@drummerboy4as]

Thanks! The Picaxe system seems to have issues with servo control on occasion. I tried several things to keep the sorting servo from being twitchy and none of them worked. Talking to others it seems it's a known issue.

[@KapitanWalnut]

Great project! I've worked with the pickaxe before and experienced that same "twitchy servo" issue. Are you using the SERVO or SERVOPOS command? There's an issue with SERVO resetting the PWM counter too soon (causing servos to twitch) if subsequent SERVO commands are executed - adding a very brief delay (30ms or so) between SERVO commands helps. In this project I doubt you want to use the SERVOPOS command since it doesn't hold the servos in place. Another issue could be that you need to add another larger bypass cap in parallel with the small bypass cap on the power rail of your micro (small cap is low impedance shunt to ground for high freq noise, large cap helps "hold up" voltage rail through longer transients). I've also found that adding a bypass cap physically close to every connection of a 5V servo pin back to the board can help eliminate twitch. This is because sometimes when multiple servos engage simultaneously, the voltage on the 5V rail can dip just enough to cause things to get a bit weird. Bypass caps can help the system ride through the voltage dips.

[@funny-video-YouTube-channel]

This is great. You could let it sort small stones from the beach or mountains, and then sell sacks of colorful stones by color.

[@MrSilva777]

I know nothing about making robots, but this is actually really cool man I can see a ton of work must have gone into it.

[@drummerboy4as]

Thank you! It was quite a fun project.

[@calebstamey4757]

Awesome project man. I'm also in mechatronics, down here in SC, and brainstormed the idea while eating m&m's today at work, thinking about ideas for my project in robotics class coming up. This kind of design was basically what I had in mind, but to see it in action was really sweet. Well done!

[@PrinceLettuce_4]

It's amazing that, long after the death of the universe via entropy, this device will continue its work.

[@drummerboy4as]

PrinceLettuce provided someone is alive to feed it candy...

[@Akshaizo]

Hah, that sound is hard to forget. Very cool.

[@nicholasgraham89]

Very beautiful project! I love the bread board protoboard.

[@unigamer]

I love the effort and attention that has been made into making this look nice. Good job! :)

[@playaspec]

Very nicely done.

[@electronutlabs]

Well done!

[@MrPinknumber]

It's a beauty !

[@maxounette-jv7dj]

you should make 10h hour version of this video :p

[@JamesBos]

Great work! Did you purposely delay writing the score to the LCD a few extra 100ms so it would coincide with the nice "biiing" when the M&M hits the bucket? If so, nice touch! Hi from r/Electronics :)

[@drummerboy4as]

I'd like to say I planned it but it just happened to work out perfectly

[@Yrouel86]

How do you handle the oddball defect M&Ms that sometimes you find in the packages? Would it be able to sort both color and different candies IE a mix of skittles M&Ms and smarties?

[@chsdfsbwersdf2568]

Nice machine! I'm impressed by the mechanism to separate the M&Ms. How did you went to design it?

[@EPeters208]

6 colors on the LCD but it has 7 cups. What's the other color?

[@drummerboy4as]

That's the error cup. If a candy doesn't meet a color profile or if the candy slips by the IR it ends up in the 7th bucket

[@heckyes]

Cool! That must have been fun to build. I am unfamiliar with Piceaxe, how does it compare to the Duino and Pi family of controllers?

[@drummerboy4as]

It's a meant to be a training platform. It's programmed in BASIC.

[@petermaginot2640]

Neat!

[@karllautman-family]

Hey, Ethan. Great build. How reliable is your M&M extractor (the rotating piece of clear acrylic)? Ever get any jams? If so, how often?

[@drummerboy4as]

Involute1052 thanks! It's actually pretty reliable with fresh candy. When I was testing and running the same candy over and over they would start to get sticky and jam up. The mechanism for sorting took quite a bit of trial and error to make it reliable.

[@karllautman-family]

What's the ID of the tube feeding the M&Ms into the extractor? That looks like an important dimension for making it work, but maybe not.

[@drummerboy4as]

ID of that tube is about an inch. It's big enough to allow 3 candies to rest at the bottom at the same time but loose enough so they can move. Any smaller and they get stuck

[@samweiskittel8485]

What chip did you use to control the system? Also, what sensor did you use to determine the color of the candy?

[@SilverStackers]

maybe a vision sensor? those are expensive though.

[@drummerboy4as]

The chip is a Picaxe 28x2, it was part of the requirement for the class. The color sensor is a TCS34725 from Adafruit. It's an RGB sensor that communicates via I2C, very capable little sensor.

[@user-wx1nm7mw6n]

Can i use Arduino board(maybe UNO R3 or other) to make this?

[@karllautman-family]

Hey, Ethan. How thick are the disk that shuttles the M&M around to the chute and the little agitator thing glued to the disk, next to the well the M&M rides in?

[@drummerboy4as]

Involute1052 the disc is 1/8". The agitator piece is 3/16"

[@jouvinejowr5520]

What do you study and how you made the outer frame ?

[@nikamintv8797]

U need to make a video how do u build this so bad😭😭😭😭😭

[@3obby]

Why is that motor so obnoxiously loud?

[@SilverStackers]

pretty sure it a vibratory motor to help feed the candy.

[@drummerboy4as]

Alfred is right, there's a small pancake vibration motor on the chute from the hopper to help the candy move. Without it the candy would get stuck. In V2 the chute will be more angled so gravity should suffice.

[@orbtain]

will this work with skittles???

[@drummerboy4as]

Not the way it's programmed now. But its a pretty easy change to accept other color candies.

[@jessenorris1672]

Can you Increase the feed and sorting rates?

[@drummerboy4as]

Jesse Norris unfortunately no. It’s current speed is about as fast as I could get it. The limiting factors are the speed of the servos and the speed of the RGB sensor.

[@jessenorris1672]

Ethan Crane do you know of a platform that will allow faster timing?