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Automatic Skittle Sorter Sorts Out The Good Colors (Red)

November 6, 2012 / candy, colors, count me in, flavors, flavors as colors, i like candy, magic, my teeth are rotting out of my face, one time i bought six family sized packages of skittles and made one superbag of all reds, skittles, sorting machine, sure why not, that's a good idea, they should make a brown skittle

skittle-sorter.jpg

Let's face it: red is the best flavor Skittle. Why they don't just sell packs of all red is a crying shame. Tropical Skittles are an abomination and only two flavors of Wild Berry Skittles are acceptable (pink and red -- and pink is actually the same as regular Skittles red). This is a Skittle sorting machine made by Brian Egenriether. It sorts your Skittles out by color so you can easily throw all the green ones away.

This is a machine I designed to sort Skittles. It uses a BASIC Stamp 2 and 3 servos for actuation. An IR LED and phototransistor are used to stop the turnstile in position. I fabricated may of the parts from epoxy including the body, the turnstile, the chute header, etc. The base is wood and the funnel is from a hummingbird feeder. The rest is made from telescope parts and PVC. I've made some recent modifications to the machine. Now the color detection stage is visible and I painted some previously unfinished parts.

Sure you could probably sort Skittles by hand just as fast, but who has the time for that? My time is valuable. "Says the guy who just spent an hour staring at the ceiling trying to make out patterns in the texture." IT'S TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING.

Hit the jump for a brief video of the Skittle sorter sorting.

Thanks to Freebus, who will take you all the way downtown FOR NO COST.

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There are Comments
  • cents

    youre a racist

  • You should be ashamed. Purples are discarded. Yellow, green, and orange are superior.

  • ZomBBombeR

    I prefer the complex interactions of eye hand coordination to sort my skittles.

  • I love ALL Wild Berry Skittles. But when it comes to original, I so agree with you.

  • cocoa

    one time this guy i really liked sorted out all the red skittles out of a GIANT bag of skittles and then he poured them all into a empty, small bag of skittles and stapled it at the top. it was REAL ROMANTIC.

  • ZomBBombeR

    I hope you didn't let him go most of us ain't that patient LMAO.

  • There were green apple skittles for a while. They tasted like fuck yes.

  • The mere thought made me gag.

  • Maggot

    I've never tasted individual Skittles, I just throw handfuls in my mouth.

  • Lame, I made this thing in high school...

  • The real question here is, how can this technology be applied to the field of sorting M&Ms?

  • I e-mailed the creator on the matter and the M&Ms port is being developed, expected as a software update and a plastic extra part valued about $500.

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