Parkerj33's Baseball Card Sorting Robot

[parkerj33]

I took a video... please forgive my crappy videography.

Still have some minor tweaks to do on it....but i have been using it for a week to get caught up on my 2017 heritage base cards before the HHN arrives.

It takes about 2 seconds per card....not nearly as fast as i can do it myself, but then again, now i don't have to do anything except load up the stack!

EDIT: I should clarify: it sorts the 6 inch stack by hundreds first. then each stack of hundreds are run through the machine again to be sorted into 10s.

More details:

I started with a stock robot called the uarm Metal. ($330 online). It did not come with a camera. I work for a company writing software that does machine vision... i used one of our cameras and wrote custom software to detect the numbers on the cards. I had someone I know print the holder and stand for the robot using a 3d printer. I had to write software for the robot, and then wire up some custom cable to connect the camera to the robot. I then further modified software on the camera to output the information to the uArm controller so it would take that info and know what stack to put the card in.

The hardest part (by far) was getting the robot arm to move properly to gently pickup the cards. Probably needed a more expensive robot, but it does get the job done.

[ThoseBackPages]

AMAZING!!!!!

Dont even have to be there for it to sort!

[Neo]

Really awesome robot.

Thanks for sharing!

[Original Boski]

Genius machine.

Get your costs down and/or speed it up, sell it to big breakers.

[jewcer2k5]

If you speed it up I would be interested. I despise sorting so if this could take it into piles 100's and then down to 10's it would be a major time saver for me.

[Big35Hurt]

That's damn cool! Thanks for sharing.

[Dhoneal83]

This blew my mind. Color me impressed.

[parkerj33]

Thanks guys. until i can address the static cling phenomenon, i can't speed it up...

[PoPCulture]

1. Take it on Shark Tank
2. Make $$$
3. Buy more cards
4. Put more robots to work sorting said cards

Also...Congrats! You accomplished a lot more than I did this week lol

[rcgdodge]

Good stuff. Very impressive.

I wonder if air blowing in on the sides of the cards would help with the static cling.

[mjohnatgt]

Sweet.

[Chaotic30]

that's awesome, but i can't replace my wife with a robot for card sorting she would not be happy

[Pearce77]

- Rub it with Bounce sheets
- I like how the left two stacks are former Brewers

[parkerj33]

air blowing might work....i have to wait up to 2 seconds for the cards to fall off....thats why the stack holder has corner guides, so when the cards fall off they gently fall back onto the stack.

[HadWayTooMuch]

I don't know what to say. That's incredible!

[parkerj33]

added more details to first post.

[HeritageKing]

Meh, does it sort light backs?

[mattglet]

Haha, that's fantastic. I actually started writing some software dealing with image recognition for cards but got in a little over my head and got impatient (I'm a software developer) - this makes me want to try it out again. You did some really awesome stuff!

[brentandbecca]

Originally Posted by jewcer2k5

If you speed it up I would be interested. I despise sorting so if this could take it into piles 100's and then down to 10's it would be a major time saver for me.

This is a spectacular start!
So while Jim gets this going full-speed building sets and making these at mass production for us all to affordably own...

in the meantime...have kids or hire kids
will be quicker and cheaper in short term while waiting

[Dbacksbaseball]

Very Impressed. You may be onto something. As Jewcer said, I am very interested if there is a way to speed up the process slightly.

[preakness]

Real world problems

[Master Shake]

The start of machines becoming self aware.

[preakness]

No need to produce a machine to do a job that a mother in law could do
For free

[CharlieHustle]

This is pretty cool.
You could eliminate the static cling by re configuring the angle of "the stack". The stack of cards shouldn't be perfectly flat, it should be at a 45 degree angle, just like a deck shoe (the deck holder that a dealer uses for blackjack) and the cards should be pulled off to the side, not straight up.
Assuming you have no static cling, that speeds up the machine from 10 cards per minute to 15 cards per minute.
Can the arm move faster than it is now? Also, does each set need it's own program or does the camera perform zonal OCR?

[Neo]

Originally Posted by Master Shake

The start of machines becoming self aware.

As long as we DON'T turn skynet on... we're okay.