Vex screws are often mixed together during the assembly and disassembly of Vex robotics machines. This problem exists within engineering classes which use vex robotics products and as well in VEX robotics competition teams. Sorting these screws is often time consuming and can take time away from assembly and disassembly of the robot. That is why we have planned on building a screw sorter specially designed for vex robotics screws.
This is a survey me and my partner are conducting for a senior project in our engineering design class. We are devising a way to sort screws and would like statistics on who would find a solution useful.
Here are the 4 questions we ask in the survey:
Would you be interested in a screw sorter for vex robotics screws?
If we held a giveaway of the first prototypes, would you like to receive one of them to review?
How frustrated do you get when sorting screws?(scale 1 - 10)
How much are you willing to pay for such a device, that sorts screws?(USD)($10 - $50)
This is a really great idea! I don’t mind sorting screws (it’s sort of relaxing :)), it is quite time consuming. How are you planning to do this, mechanically or with image processing? If it’s the latter, it could sort all kinds of different hardware parts.
Almost certainly mechanical as they are a group of HS students in an engineering class. I’m curious how they plan on sorting them. My first thougbt is different lengths get sorted by passing through holes but how do you ensure the scew goes in at the right angle.
We are planning on having 2 versions of the sorter.
1.0 - manual (hand shaken type version , will be cheaper)
2.0 - automatic (put stuff in, and you get nice sorted screws in the end, little bit more expensive.
Me and my partner are not highly experienced programmers, but we are learning. It is highly likely that we will not be able to do image processing because of the cost and the programming experience related to do such a thing. But doesn’t hurt to try
Our main priority is sorting screws. But if time allows, we will try to incorporate a system with it that sorts kep nuts, nylock, washers, and short axles.
Personally, after sorting all of my team’s and my sister teams’ screws, I am usually able to tell what size the screw is just by holding it. A little sad, but also pretty useful. A screw sorter would be amazingly helpful! It is quite a pet peeve of mine when I find that the screws have been tossed into random sections of our small parts sorter. To be able to re-sort them quickly would save a lot of time and frustration.
