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Digital Image
Color Sorter
Background
In various parts of the world, people buy loose grains at supermarkets. This means that the customers have to separate the grains by hand at home. This could be a tedious job especially for older people.
Solution
My solution is to make a small machine that can automate the process for the user. The machine I made utilizes object and color detection to isolate each grain and separate accordingly. In Taiwan, coffee beans are a popular product that often needs to get sorted, so I made my machine with this product in mind.
How It Works
The machine works by having the user insert the coffee through the top container. After the coffee is in, the machine starts to rotate the base plate of the container allowing a single bean to be selected. The bean falls through the tube down into the sorting plank. Above the sorting plank there is a camera that is recording a video on a Raspberry Pi.
The Raspberry Pi is coded so that it does nothing until it detects movement. This is done by comparing frames and making sure nothing changes. When it detects movement it checks the frame and filters any color that it doesn't want. Depending on what color it detects, it rotates the sorting plank to separate it accordingly.
*Note: The image shows a red skittle thrown into the sorting plank. The camera filters any color other than red and displays whether the object is red or not. This is done for code testing and was not tested for other colors.