Introduction: PhantomX Pincher Skittles Apartheid
Are you tired of everyday problems such as mixing of colors in your skittles bowl? This impractical, expensive solution will sort your colors slightly less effective than the South African government. A Pixy Camera is utilized to detect the color of your skittles on a predefined surface area, whereafter the PhantomX Pincher is used to move them to a desired location. From here you can ultimately move them to their rightful homeland, your belly.
Step 1: What You Need
1 x PhantomX Pincher Robot Arm Kit Mark II
Buy, Assemble, Set-up and Software
1 x Pixy CMUCam5
1 x All the skittles you desire.
Buy your skittles here, or somewhere else.
1 x Camera Mounting Tripod / Rack / You decide.
Minimum 26 cm tall.
Step 2: Interfacing and Setup
Connect the Hardware as shown:
ISP: PixyCam (Color Detection)
Digital I/O 1: Push Button (Hold to stop robot)
Digital I/O 2: Push Button (Hold to run once)
Digital I/O 3: Push Button (Hold to run indefinitely)
Analogue I/O 1 : Slider (Speed adjustment)
Step 3: PixyCamSetup
Camera is to be hoisted approximately 26 cm above designated skittle area. The marked lenghts (ylenghtminmm, ylengthmaxmm, xlenghtmm) are measured and noted down with the given names. The ylenghts are meassured from the middle of the basemotor to the y-edge of the designated skittle area. The xlenght is meassured from the middle of the skittle area to the x-edge. The entire skittle area is to be seen from the pixycam POV. The calibration program "calibration" is run with serial monitor. Each of the locations (ylenghtminpx, ylengthmaxpx, xmidpx, xlengthmaxpx) is written down corrisponding to the pixel value on the camera for the axis.
Configure PixyCam "block" values to:
Max blocks: 1
Max blocks per signature: 1
Min block area: 2
Step 4: Programs
Calibration code:
Run calibration code and follow instructions in step 3 before sorting skittles.
Robot program:
Import the ax12 library from NooTriX-technology and run robot program when calibration is complete. Watch the magic happen.