29 December, 2014

Sort M&M with Arduino and iPhone

By Mauricio Hidalgo

For chocolate lovers and Arduino, I want to share an article that I found browsing, a curious Arduino project. It is a small machine that uses an Arduino and an iPhone to sort M&M color without a color sensor to intervene, just the iPhone camera and an application that determines the color used.

How to Sort M&M with Arduino and iPhone?

This curious machine works simply, argues its designer and author of the article, which basically done is connect the iPhone via a bluetooth module with an Arduino and control a series of relays that activate the electromagnets.

The M&M are poured into a kind of chute that rotates to make the M&M fall by gravity, it is where comes in the iPhone, taking a picture of each M&M as the camera is looking at a white background, whenever M&M pass a background change compared using an application, that determines the color and that color depending, the iPhone sends a signal to the arduino via bluetooth, so the corresponding relay is activated, the gate opens and goes sorting.

I thought it was a very curious and interesting Arduino project and not only can be applied to M&M, as there are many applications that require this type of machine.

Here a video of its operation:


For those who want to deepen the project and want to know how to develop detailed, can visit the author’s website at the following link.

Congratulations for this lover Arduino