Skittles Sorting Machine
Where
Year
Senior Year, High School
2019
Overview:
Worked in a team of 4 to create a machine that sorted skittles by their color with a color sensor and two servo motors. I designed the sorter in Fusian 360 and coordinated the building of the machine among team members.
Functionality:
The skittles were taken from a globe at the top of the fixture and passed one-by-one down through a color sensor. From there, the sensor decided which way to rotate a second servo motor which held a slide. The skittle would be dropped on the slide and would fall into its color-designated bin. After sorting, the consumer could select their desired color and it would come out of a hole in the front, similar to a traditional candy machine.
CAD renderings from Fusion 360
PART DESCRIPTIONS:
Servo with rotational plate that carries the skittle from the globe to the slide
Buckets that collect the sorted skittles and hold them until selection.
Globe with skittles
Servo with "slide" that rotates to correct color bucket
Slots get pulled out to release selected color for the user.
(not pictured) Hole where skittles dispense from
Problems Faced:
Our team faced various issues at the start. Our color sensor was finicky and the 3D printer we relied on for our CAD-generated pieces broke mid-way through printing our most important parts, and more. We had to work together to be creative. Countless hours were spent home-making the pieces. Our funnel, that transported the selected skittle color to the user on request, was made out of aluminum foil, hot glue, and cardboard. After we trouble-shot the design faults, we were able to refocus our efforts towards saving the color sensor.
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Takeaways:
At the end of the day, our classmates and teacher were impressed by our resourcefulness when faced with a tricky situation. Our skittles sorter functioned completely on the project presentation day and we recieved an A on the project!
