Remember when Skittles decided to change the green candies from lime-flavored to green apple and you lost your f’n mind?
Maybe that was just me.
No, it was not just me. Everyone agrees that the green apple ones are awful and ruin the flavor integrity of a handful of Skittles candies. I can’t taste the rainbow if part of it tastes like dishsoap, Skittles.
Engineer Nathan Peterson has had enough of this nonsense, as well. Using a 3D printer, he designed (with Tinkercad) a machine that can sort Skittles by color. Witness it at work:
A ZITRADES TCS3200 color sensor system uses LED lights to detect the color of the candy, and then a system of rotating gears drop it into a corresponding tray. The development process was not without its problems, though.
The surface of the skittles are very shiny and irregular, so they end up producing a lot of glare. I figured out how to get around this issue by placing polarizing filters on both the LED light source, as well as over the color sensor itself (at a 90 degree angle relative to the other filter).
It’s not suitable for M&M’s because there are only five trays, and six colors of M&M’s. Then again, only crazy people have to sort M&M’s because THEY ALL TASTE THE SAME. If you buy in to any of those color-coded M&M urban legends, then you and I are not on the same level of seriousness about candy.
Technically, this machine will sort of work with M&M’s, but not as well because M&M’s are a bit smaller and get jammed easier.
The plans for this Skittles-specific sorter are on Hackaday, along with photos of the process he went through to build it. Soon, you and I both can begin the important task of delivering the “new green” Skittles directly to the garbage, where they belong.
(Via Kotaku)