The Marble Sorter By Frank Katona, Bardhyl Gjoka, John Nessan and Jack Nilan Project Lead the Way – POE Summer 2009

The Marble Sorter. Our marble sorter takes marbles into a funnel. The marbles are then taken one at a time by a wheel feeder that delivers one marble to the system every 3 seconds. The marble then travels down the shoot. If the marble is black it will change the value received by the photoresistor to a value greater than 270. This then closes a gate which will sort black marbles into a separate bin. After one second the gate will reset itself. Clear marbles will travel down the shoot and will not trip the gate.

The Marble Sorter. Our marble sorter takes marbles into a funnel. The marbles are then taken one at a time by a wheel feeder that delivers one marble to the system every 3 seconds. The marble then travels down the shoot. If the marble is black it will change the value received by the photoresistor to a value greater than 270. This then closes a gate which will sort black marbles into a separate bin. After one second the gate will reset itself. Clear marbles will travel down the shoot and will not trip the gate.

The Marble Sorter Program

First we turn on the lamp that will be used to give the photoresistor a consistent value. Next we turn on the motor for the controlled wheel feeder that will feed the marbles one at a time into the sorter.

Next the program enters a loop which will feed up to 10 black marbles Next the program enters a loop which will feed up to 10 black marbles. The we get the photoresistor value and put it into a variable (so we could see the changing value). The value starts at a value of 80, opposite the lamp. Next we put that into the decision box. If the value is greater than 270 than something dark has passed in front of it and we then turn on the motor, clockwise, for .2 seconds, which then closes a gate so the black marble will be diverted into its own bin.

The third part of the program turns off the motor, waits a second, leaving the gate open. Then the motor turns on counter clockwise for .2 of a second closing the gate. Then the motor turns off and the program loops around and starts over again.

The Marble Sorter Working Our Marble Sorter on YouTube