M&M sorting machine

[Undertoad]

In his spare time this gentleman has come up with a decent M&M sorting machine

My approach sends M&Ms down a chute to start with. But I don’t stop the M&M for colour recognition. Instead I use an iPhone to capture the colour of the M&M as it is in freefall. As it is still falling the iPhone talks to a Bluetooth module attached to an Arduino and that fires off the correct electro magnet controlled gate.

Why didn't I think of that.

[lumberjim]

What a collasal waste of time

[fargon]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

What a collasal waste of time

I think that is the point.

[glatt]

Could be the foot in the door at a manufacturing tooling company. Somebody has to build all the automated equipment at factories.

[Lamplighter]

Unfortunate for this inventor, it's been there and done that and patented already.

The re-cycling of glass bottles and jars by breaking them into small bits,
and separating the bits by color using a stream of air as they are in free-fall.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Unfortunate for this inventor, it's been there and done that and patented already.

The re-cycling of glass bottles and jars by breaking them into small bits,
and separating the bits by color using a stream of air as they are in free-fall.

I saw that cranberry sorting is done the same way, essentially.

[Gravdigr]

That M&M machine is all kinds of fucked up.

It's not sorting out the W's.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

That M&M machine is all kinds of fucked up.

It's not sorting out the W's.

Some people are never satisfied.

If he had wanted to sort out the W's too,
he would have named it a M&W machine

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

What a collasal waste of time

But it could be easily adapted to work for Skittles as well.

[Gravdigr]

Or Reese's Pieces.

I know a guy named Reece. We call his kids (6 of them!) Reece's Pieces.

[infinite monkey]

I didn't see the dark brown or light brown M&Ms. I saw blue ones...which are toxic waste ones.

FLAWED.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

What a collasal waste of time

Maybe knowing his W&Ws are being sorted will allow him to hold a job.

[lumberjim]

Colossal. Colossal. Huge. Large. Girthy. Immense.

But it was probably fun to do

[tw]

Originally Posted by glatt

Could be the foot in the door at a manufacturing tooling company.

Many who have no idea how innovation happens have identified themselves here. Why would anyone spend massively on scientists to make a computer chess game? Especially when a phone company does not play chess or do anything related to chess? Especially when the company's products and equipment did nothing with computers?

What resulted was UNIX (also called SCO, Ultrix, POSIX, Xenix, BSD, Linux, AIX, Windows, OSX) and C Programming language (and its many variants). Because what is done in fundamental research has zero potential value until application research then takes that discovery into a product.

Why would anyone spend so much money on research application of minerals? Because what resulted is the so many tapes and glues that we use today (3M). Why would anyone spend so much time developing a virus that can enter and compromise human cells? Because that now is suddenly how stem cell and peptide research may be curing diseases.

Why would anyone buy the rights to a useless video recorder that costs $20,000 to make. Because what resulted was the $multi-million VCR and DVD market. Ampex management had no idea what they were giving away for peanuts. They were business school graduates who could not see potential in ridiculous and money wasting ventures.

Is pattern recognition is easy? Just because one feels it is easy means any computer programmer can replicate it? Of course not. Pattern recognition is a hot field of study because it is so hard. Doing it on a pathetic computer inside a phone with such speed is a challenge.

Intel had no idea that a microprocessor could become a computer. Computer was not even listed in the hundreds of potential uProcessor applications. So why are all computers now based in uProcessors? It took 20 years to discover a uProcessor's most important task was computing. Was that obvious back then? Of course not.

That is what innovation is about. Discovering a problem to solve by first creating a solution ... that has no apparent purpose.

Appalling is how many did not even see what should be obvious. Characteristic of a business school graduate is one who does not know how innovation happens. Who cannot see what appears rediculous may be the innovator's dilemma. And does not realize it takes maybe 1000 such projects to create the one massive breakthrough. These who do not recognized how innovation happens is a primary reason for so many job losses.

[mbpark]

TW,

You should go to business school these days. They have an entire curriculum based upon innovation and startups. I took one of those classes. It was taught by a former Ensoniq executive. We went over what made Commodore succeed in detail (the engineering team there was all ex-C= engineers who designed the C= 64). We talked about how to properly finance companies, and how to determine the success or failure of a product. We also talked about how being an entrepreneur is serial, and how most ventures will fail. We also talked a lot about sensitivity testing and pivots.

There's many reasons why to invest, and why not to invest in product development. While I cannot stop some MBAs from opening their mouths, and in class I really wanted to do that a lot to a certain few, there is solid logic and reasoning behind it.

It's a different place than what it was 10-20 years ago. MBA-based thinking before was not focused on creativity, innovation, or strategy. It sure is now.

I am 48 credits into my MBA at Temple. 6 more to go then I become yet another MBA in IT.