The WORLD'S FIRST Universal LEGO Sorting Machine

Over two years in the making, this is the world's first Universal LEGO Sorting Machine, an AI-powered automated sorting machine that is capable of recognizing and sorting any LEGO part that has ever been produced*.
Follow me on Twitter for more updates and information about this and other projects: / justasquid
Be sure to check out my video about how I designed an artificial intelligence system to recognize LEGO parts: • LEGO Sorter AI: How Do...
I have also written some articles about some of the technology underlying the sorting machine:
towardsdatascience.com/a-high...
towardsdatascience.com/how-i-...
If you'd like to contact me, you can reach me on Twitter ( / justasquid )
Or LinkedIn ( / daniel-west-351731139 )
Or email daniel DOT west DOT 279 AT gmail.com
Music from the album 'Mirage' by the one and only Sam Gossner: samulis.bandcamp.com/album/mi...
Filming by my good friend Larry: / @larrygang
Editing and thumbnail by the incredible Test-Object - he's open for commissions: dieter DOT theuns AT gmail.com
This project would not have been possible without the use of some incredible open source hardware and software:
The Ldraw Part Library: ldraw.org
The Raspberry Pi Computer: raspberrypi.org
Blender: blender.org
Tensorflow: tensorflow.org
The Rebrickable part database: rebrickable.com
* (Subject to some limitations, e.g. parts that are unable to fit in the machine, flexible/articulated parts, parts not in the LDraw part library, etc)

[@BeyondtheBrick]

Fantastic work, Daniel. Keep it up!

[@colemanhugh6317]

Instablaster.

[@matthewnuzzaco2849]

I worked alongside a team in 2014 on a system that classified and counted LEGO. The concept worked but to industrialize the process was pretty challenging. Dealing with parts stuck together was the biggest problem. I love the fact that you went super meta and also made the machine out of LEGO

[@csullivan626]

Agreed. Selling the unit is an option but also selling the design so people can built their own is a good idea too since .. they obviously have legos and want to build stuff (would rather sort than toss). Lego inc. might even be interested!

[@OriginalIdeaWeb]

Please consider a kickstarter or something, or selling plans and the software? This is amazing

[@minlrgo]

i will eventualy do one that i will sell and it will handle as many different category as you want without more motor

[@iRONcss]

@@minlrgo pls contact me

[@minlrgo]

@@iRONcss do you have an email or discord

[@csullivan626]

I’d like to invest if you need any funding. I’d also like to own 1. Please feel free to reach out!

[@minlrgo]

@@csullivan626 are you speaking to me ? or to andrew or else ?

[@mortensimonsen1645]

The LEGO Company should make and sell lego-sorting machines. It should be possible to instruct the machine to sort bricks for a particular lego set, and note which pieces are missing (then automatically create a list of Bricklink).

[@SamSmithNZ]

Are there plans for this? Is there a new version? I'm curious where this has gone in 3 years. Would love to see something like this open sourced (or sold) so the community can build on this.

[@Pv-productions]

Great project and execution. Bringing the best of LEGO and engineering together in a useful way!

[@jacobl777]

Wow Daniel, super impressive! I am amazed at the creativity, resourcefulness, and just how cool it was that you did this. I am going to show this to my young son as an example of what he can aspire to with some some creativity and fortitude.

[@Anthonybrother]

This is an amazing proof of concept. A very useful machine. Please consider making one to sort nuts, bolts and screws, and get rich selling it to DIYers. I'd be ready to pledge like 100$ if you needed crowdfunding.

[@friendlychips]

I'm so glad someone brought this idea to life. It is incredible what you have created and I can't wait to see whatever you do next!

[@zaquszacz]

I'm totally in love with this project :D Great execution! Will surely feature this in my weekly technology report (even though I saw this a little bit late). Good luck with any following projects!

[@chinca]

amazing. Been dreaming up something along these lines for years. Bravo on getting it done!

[@brothersbrick]

That's incredible. Well done!

[@naugthiusmaximus5013]

Woahh!! Crazy stuff, I like. I've dreamt of a machine like this but in which you could feed in specific model(s) plan(s) so that the sorting can be made to segregate a ton-load of pieces by models. This could be a super tool for dads with kids that had way too much legos over the years and now all the pieces are mixed up in the same bin or part of a weird custom made model 😁 ....just an idea for your next project🤣

[@teamblueflare5464]

Dude this is amazing and you are amazing, someone get this man some views

[@albusron3490]

"Everyone hates sorting LEGO" Speak for yourself, I LOVE sorting LEGO.

[@joki6395]

u are very smart, I have had ideas of a machine like this myself, but never understood how the computer would recognize a part

[@nicolaimogensen8167]

Very cool project, have been following along on Twitter. Good job 😎

[@iPondrio]

It would be nice to see this as an official LEGO set, I would definitely buy it !

[@ivanivonovich9863]

It would be the most expensive set you could have. Plus, you did read that it took 2 years to design and developed this, right? So how long do you think it would take to assemble one from a set? Perhaps at least two months? And that would be if you got every moving part/system together right the first time. Great idea though!

[@neumannon]

This is fantastic! I've had this idea for awhile but just never had time to dedicate to the project. As a "Phase 2", my plan was to keep an inventory database of the detected bricks that were sorted. Then run this database against all available lego building set instructions. So based on the legos someone owns, they can choose a set of instructions and build to completion whatever the thing is. And on top of this, maybe add thresholds where a user can say they want lego instructions for sets that are a certain percent complete. so if i input 90%, it would find not only lego instructions for sets i can complete in its entirety but lego instructions where i have 90% of the bricks available to complete the set. One last thing, you could have a user community for contributing instruction sets. A person could filter on official only instructions or include user generated instructions as well. Anyway, it is a pipe dream of mine. If you are feeling ambitious, maybe it is something you could add on to your already awesome invention.

[@kevinagan6174]

That technology already exists. Take a look at the "build" section of rebrickable.com/build/

[@Bandit-Darville]

Nice! This video made it on to a news website here in The Netherlands!

[@Just_Paulo]

Lol. Same. Just got it into my Google feed

[@stopmotionmaster5933]

Welke als ik vragen mag?

[@Bandit-Darville]

nu.nl www.nu.nl/277861/video/slimme-lego-machine-herkent-en-sorteert-lego-stenen.html

[@ThatDumbDoge]

Nog niet gelezen, ga nu bekijken!

[@TheGrainDoctor]

Very cool! Looking forward to the other video!

[@xobotix]

I cant wait to see what you do next :) Cheers

[@kebvr25]

This is incredible!! Would you do a video on the 18 categories you use? I've been trying to find a good way to organize bricks.

[@antoniorobles8706]

Hard work, passion, creativity, technology, ART!

[@ninline2000]

This is an amazing project. Well done.

[@LegoCloud]

Dang dude that is insane, I’d lose my mind building that thing you. are. truly insane! :)

[@p.b.6034]

wooow... Daniel you made incredible job. I love spend time with brick but sorting for long time is exhausting :D

[@cgstadler]

Daniel - can you comment as to how you decided on the final buckets / taxonomy? Like, is it all gears in one bucket, and then simple blocks? I'd love to see more on that, if you do a followup video. Thank you!

[@madmax.bricks]

We want instructions!

[@g2rinfo675]

We could use that at Gears 2 Robots! So much time is spent sorting Lego Education kits after summer camps and classes!

[@Darthrush1]

You are a genius, absolutely amazing work.

[@swampcastle8142]

Step one: buy a big pile of legos Step two: build a sorting machine Step three: buy another big pile of legos Step four: sort the pile of legos Love it

[@Victor.Channel]

Great idea. Thank’s for sharing.

[@bakkerem1967]

I'm curious if you will be able to link to resulting brick inventory to the bricklink database, so you instantly can see what sets the lot comprises of (and what stones are missing). Next step would be to sort the bricks straight into bins, dedicated to a single set.

[@carlwestman9343]

Awsome project! Will you ever make any of the code/dataset public? 😊 I think the benefits would be great since more people could keep improving both 😁

[@antoineddp]

Really nice job ! Hope it will goes even faster !

[@alirezakaramali1844]

good job. this is very interesting project .I enjoyed.

[@BricksMinifigs1078]

Would love to figure out how to build this, awesome work!

[@ValleyOfWillows]

I work at a tortilla chips manufacturing company and they use the same technique of a vibrating plate to spread out the chips with before they pass them under a camera to see if there are too browned or burned chips among them.

[@Ree1981]

Well now you can input random variable images into the neural net and increase its efficiency!

[@c0nsaw]

Fantastic, well done

[@BurnZKc]

This is insane, how cool!

[@angellomercado5747]

Wuao 2 años, excelente amigo, saludos desde Perú 🇵🇪

[@tonyshepherd6053]

Great job Daniel!

[@manugo4]

Amazing work!!

[@gyverworld]

Awesome man... Nice Work

[@NinaKlos]

This is awesome!

[@RailRoad188]

Very impressive, and will help so many with other similar, and less similar projects! ❤

[@daved22]

Can you put this on Lego Ideas, i know it would never get made but maybe its a way to give lego wake up call of what AFOLs really want . less time sorting and more time building !

[@zebramax3]

Hey this is great... You just discovered how to sort plastic bottles into the right plastic groups for recycling.

[@Quantum-Bullet]

zebramax3 and, how many % are actually really recycled and not burned?

[@davis3138]

It's trained on 3D models. So do you really think it's feasible to make a 3D model for every single type of plastic bottle, every color, every brand, every shape, not to mention variations of such bottles, whether they be dented, malformed, or otherwise misshapen?

[@fitybux4664]

@Roman Hauksson-Neill For the non-popular ones, you can just sell it to the next guy with a better sorter. :-)

[@IanNelson888]

This is soooo freakin cool!

[@onegalaxyplay]

So cool! i saw this when i was at the Raspberry Pi website.

[@coleklaassen9427]

David, first off I love this so much you're a genius. Because the pieces aren't all the way sorted, could you put each bucket (category) back into the machine and let it further sort it? In the end, you could be 100% sorted. Just a thought.

[@coleklaassen9427]

Also, your name isn't David that's a fun mistake, so sorry

[@Brickyfilms]

Absolutely incredible

[@TheLab-X]

Just found your video. Great job!

[@sdkfgnrjdi]

I cannot believe this guy stopped making videos after this one. I hope that is because his focusing on the production of this amazing machine.

[@notexcisting546]

How can you be sick of sorting? It's the best part of LEGO! But I love your approach.

[@anarrichjr6747]

+1000!

[@Tekar0]

I'm dreaming of the day when I can select a brick in an app on my phone, point the camera to a pile of Lego and it finds and highlights the brick on my screen. Sort of like the real time text translation, but then for finding Lego bricks.

[@Attirbrolyat]

I check up on the progress of this every few years. It would be great if some day there was a machine -- like a coinstar -- i could dump buckets of legos into for sorting! I would pay good money for that, though with so many different shapes and colors, I suppose it would be very difficult, as you demonstrate here. You would also have trouble with dust and other random junk that seems to build in lego storage containers over time. Also, where would it sort it into? I think perhaps a good business model would be to ask someone to ship you a box and then you would provide a storage container with many compartments. That would allow you to keep it relatively small scale until you had the capital to build more sorting machines.

[@mattiasranbro]

Well done!

[@DamoZhang]

wow! great job!

[@Skorpeonismyrealname]

Designing, building, prototyping, programming, bugfixing, and improving it is still probably faster than doing it manually.

[@shpe11]

I find very useful to sort lego by colors

[@toyaji6123]

Beautiful!

[@rudestrudedog]

Great Job!!!

[@chrisallsopp6450]

very clever keep it up, thanks

[@griszaowniuk5775]

Fantastic job 👌

[@an3my554]

Underrated ngl, great

[@ArcadiumSol]

Id love to have one of these

[@John-bq1lp]

Wow incredible!

[@math_science_programming188]

I need this for the kids, big up!

[@sbazzle]

Daniel, have you continued to use this machine or made improvements to it? There definitely needs to be an updated video to this (or additional article updates), preferably with more information on the details of its operation.

[@Relhak11]

This would be insanely useful for sorting parts from new sets. I typically open 10-30 copies of a set at a time and match up the bags so there are about 25-35 unique parts in a batch of 1000+ pieces. Being able to have them sorted at even 95%+ accuracy would be huge. I'd love to help in testing to make this something that can be built and used by lots of people.

[@cskinner2108]

Why do you open 25-35 sets at a time? How had it been 3 years and no one questioned this?

[@10poundsimracing14]

Cool design

[@kostyavedernikov]

It is very very cool! You are genius!

[@TheCentaury]

now a second machine that shuffle the sorted containers and feed the sorting machine

[@utnildo]

This is amazing

[@PsyKater]

This is what Bricklink Shop owners are waiting for xD

[@AgeArena]

Great work! How accurate was the classification?

[@tiangersbach]

shut up and take my money!!

[@FarragoFox]

Have you considered adding a counting function for inventory?

[@seandavchrsn]

Well done, sir.

[@JonSmirl]

A Kendryte K210 Maix board (~$20) would be about 100x faster than the PI for the image recognition task. You can load tensorflow models onto it.

[@nikkelitous]

There is even a port of YOLO for the K210 (Search it on Github). That would be hard to optimize as easily as using a proper GPU on an external computer, but a good fun project. If only we had the dataset ;)

[@JonSmirl]

@@nikkelitous s3.cn-north-1.amazonaws.com.cn/dl.kendryte.com/documents/kendryte_datasheet_20181011163248_en.pdf

[@nikkelitous]

@@JonSmirl Yup, it's a fun toy. I have a few Sipeed Maix boards with the K210. Fun to play around with, but optimizing a model for them is a pain compared to throwing the image over the network sometimes.

[@davidcooke8005]

Can it sort by color too? In any case, bravo. Thankfully you are using your powers for good, not evil.

[@gorancelion3297]

What criteria do you use to determine which model part goes to which container? - all parts of the same color of whatever shape go to the same container - all parts of the building with the same shape regardless of color goes to the same container - all parts of a lego model such as a helicopter or fire station go to the same container

[@sqiddster]

It's arbitrary, and it would take a minimal point of code to change it to work like any of those options

[@StevesRealWorld]

I'll take one!!! Love it

[@nomadMik]

Wow. You win KZbin this week!

[@MattApple_]

I wonder how it handles non-Lego; either knock-off bricks or random objects. Also the feeder system requires that all the bricks be disconnected from each other inside the hopper. Would stuck together bricks be treated like a never before seen piece type?

[@BrickByBrick]

nice machine did you have some instructions?

[@UnwrappingByMimiKoteng]

Amazing

[@nicholasn.2883]

This is definitely the optimal solution, but a much easier on to build would be one that can identify each piece by weight and then shape if pieces share a weight. I actually might be able to build my version at home and not need a crazy budget nor a crazy time investment.

[@sqiddster]

Yes, weighing the parts would be very helpful (akiyuky does that in his machine) but it is hard to weight parts and maintain a good speed

[@nc55]

I so need this at the moment. My stranger things house fell off a shelve and smashed into a millions piece

[@BuWizzBrick]

Very impressive! :-)

[@peegee101]

Dude, this is amazing. Have you considered to use a Google Coral edge-processor to make it fully autarg? Basically a the Google Coral can infer Neural Networks really fast, and can be connected as a dongle to raspberry pi.

[@t0ms3nt0ms3n]

Today it's really hard to find a coral sold somewhere anymore 😭

[@TheKodypratt]

awesome!

[@knudahrnellalbrechtsen5136]

You could make a fortune selling the design online for this machine :D

[@julianholcroft9625]

Can you make the training data available want to make a similar project but I don't really understand how you made the images or what AI you are using from the TensorFlow package.

[@matt77hias]

Why do you not use one of the LEGO CAD programs for training? That way you can use 3D models with all possible cameras and lighting instead of relying on 2D photographs.

[@polyanskyvideo]

thats great!

[@SandsGC]

Fantastic

[@michaelweatherby8648]

Great job, very cool and technically impressive! I had seen the video from 2017 also, and just recently helped my son organize his legos into 6 categories. I too am motivated to perhaps build a lego sorter. 1x square bricks, 2x square bricks, flat pieces (any size), transparent/angled/architectural bricks, technic (anything that connects, wheels, or wheel hubs), and people/animal accessories. We've found with those 6 categories that it becomes much easier to find items without having to have massive amounts of categories. I think you said 1 piece every 2 seconds, is the limiting factor in your system the mechanical separation or the video/AI processing? It would be interesting if one could develop a more compact and speedy version, by reducing the requirements for accuracy. I thought it would be interesting if one could dump a bucket of lego and resort it into sets one had purchased, based on the parts list. it could be offered as a service at LEGO shows.

[@sqiddster]

Thanks, and good luck with your own machine! The part throughput is definitely limited by the mechanical separation. The AI speed is very fast.