Sorting Ojects

[antonso]

Hi
I am building a Robot that can find, pick, and sort coca-cola plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans. Any sugestions on how to do the sorting? I have some ideas such as using a scale, camera for color etc. But I read something about possibly using feedback from my arm servo.

[airman00]

whats your experience level?

[ankitk]

Like if youre a beginner, sorry to say dude but forget about it.
BUT however if you have exp. then.....
Well checkout airman00's butler robot...its really cool It might give you some ideas.
Ankit

[SciTech02]

This definitely sounds like a project you would use a camera for.  Which type of camera is your choice.  I would try to use a webcam (they're cheap) as the primary sensor.  Try reading Admin's computer vision tutorial (one of the best tutorials on the net, IMO) and after that, try roborealm.  Roborealm is a computer vision program that can do all the actions needed for your project; color recognition, shape recognition and even limited word recognition (someone got it to read a thermostat display).  Link: http://www.roborealm.com/

The robot arm could be simple or highly specialized, depending how much work you want to do.  Try reading Admin's robot arm tutorial first (he talks about visual servoing and other important concepts).  Because you'll be working with bottles and cans the arm doesn't have to be super heavy duty.  Go to http://www.lynxmotion.com/, they sell robot arms (ironically, they show pictures of them picking up coke cans).

This should help you get started. 

[madchimp]

Every thing you listed has bar codes perhaps you could use that to identify them. You would still need to figure out how to locate them to pick them up and get them oriented so you could read the bar code. Course figuring out how to implement a bar code reader might be a hassle too! I just thought I would throw the idea out there since it popped in my head at work last night.

[Admin]

If all the bottles are right side up, you can use a simple Sharp IR and measure height of each (they all have different heights that are easy to measure).

[antonso]

Sorry all I have not responded to your comments
I am actually a instructor. I am ssisting some students in this project. I have some experience with BS2 microcontrollers (Boebots, SumoBots etc).
The bottles will be on their side
I wnated to stay away from bar codes because I don't know which barcodes will be used. I will check out  the suggested sites
Thank you all for the input

[sdavis6736]

There are discrete color sensors you can purchase.  I believe they do have a specific range, so possibly adding them to an arm would be a good way of getting them in the specified range. 
google color sensors, also here is a link to Society of Robots color sensor tutorial.

http://www.societyofrobots.com/sensors_color.shtml