Optical-Mechanical Lego Sorting Machine

Description

Optical-Mechanical Lego sorting machine based on many of the designs already built using Legos and Mindstorm motors. This one is scaled up and ready for a lot of Legos with industrial components. It uses an implementation of emguCV, and can sort by color, shape, or set. The basis for this design is a machine that can be built from hardware purchased exclusively from McMaster, and requires a drill and a scroll saw. We plan to release the hardware design and parts list over the next few months.

Details

I will add more details over the next few days, but one of the most important parts of the project is that it can be built almost entirely from McMaster parts, a scroll saw, and a drill. I designed this with the vision that anyone with minimal shop tools could put it together.

It has taken me over a year to design, prototype code, fabricate, and test.

Part selection to minimize cost was also important, and took a fair bit of time.

If you cannot wait for my updates, please ask questions and I will do my best to answer them and post them here, emailing me joseph(at)raritylabs.com is the best way to reach me.

Sizzle Reel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVSr-aYw5x0

Sorting by shape:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/BmNUY8BFvRY

Components

1 × Aluminum 48" x 48" x 0.250" plate

2 × Gear Motors Misc gear motors, part numbers to come later

1 × 1080p Camera Logitech C525

1 × emguCV Image Recognition SW

1 × Lots of time

Project Logs

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GoLive!

Joseph Jankowski • 01/27/2015 at 05:37 • 0 comments

We are going live today with our project and our website for a maker space we are trying to start in the South Bay of Los Angeles. I have been following hackaday for years, and wanted to use this project to kick off my first hackaday post and also begin planting the seeds for a new maker community. I plan to make updates to the hackaday space and our home page concurrently. Please check back often for more updates.

Thanks!

Build Instructions

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Step 1

We will be adding build instructions over the next few months. I have 37 hours of video footage that I am trying to figure out how to break this down into usable vignettes. We will also be releasing a parts list, estimated cost, and drawings for the plates.

Discussions

codread wrote 02/26/2018 at 21:02

Oh wow awesome @senjuny and @Joseph Jankowski! How did you make the recognition or better (as I assume its a Neuronal Network) where did you get your training material for all the different types and shapes?

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senjuny wrote 04/23/2016 at 02:33

I am developer in Korean. I have been study a year Lego recognition.

My prototype can detect all of lego parts .

You can see video -->

this is recent . Fast recognition in three scecons.

this is last year. Slow recognition.

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Joseph Jankowski wrote 04/23/2016 at 05:55

That is pretty awesome work Senjuny, how do you get the black and white camera image?

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senjuny wrote 04/23/2016 at 06:35

Hi! You can get black & white image by opencv.

search google opencv "ThreadHold"

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Terminal wrote 01/07/2016 at 10:22

Thx for answer. There is no email on raritylabs page. Pls give a link to contact form or write to my email terminal.new@mail.ru

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Joseph Jankowski wrote 01/05/2016 at 15:17

Quick update: The wireless camera project has failed through four HW prototypes. I think that is dead now. However, I have been working on a touch screen Lego inventory manager, which is a key component to the backend of this Lego sorter. With that software complete, I have been modifying the camera shape recognition algorithms and implemented a faster detection loop. When I get some good working videos I will post them and more detailed build videos. If anyone wants to get more details, please email me through the raritylabs web page and look for more updates soon.

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Terminal wrote 01/05/2016 at 14:36

Great project! How can I connect with you?

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Joseph Jankowski wrote 03/25/2015 at 01:31

Thanks to those who started following this project. I will post more videos in May 2015. We are currently working on a 13MP wireless streaming video system and have put this on the side burner for a few months. I will be creating a project page for that soon, and make more updates here. Talk to you soon!

Joe

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Joseph Jankowski wrote 02/02/2015 at 00:27

Just uploaded a new video showing the machine sorting by shape. I will capture some video of sorting by color in a few weeks. I have to refactor some code and finish the build video first. New video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmNUY8BFvRY

Are you sure? yes | no

Joseph Jankowski wrote 01/28/2015 at 06:39

Thanks, it will be a few more weeks on a video with more sorting. I really wanted to get the teaser reel out there first.

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Adam Fabio wrote 01/28/2015 at 06:25

Awesome project! Can't wait to see videos of it sorting LEGO. good luck with the hackerspace!

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Optical-Mechanical Lego Sorting Machine

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