Want M&M’s Sorted By Color? Use Your iPhone [Video]

It might already be too late for Christmas, but if you’re having a budget New Year’s Eve party where M&M’s are going to be your primary means of feeding the crowd, one scientist might have found an easy way to make a $5 bag of candy a little bit more exciting.

Using an iPhone to identify the color of each one of the M&M’s was the key to the invention, birthed by British blog Review My Life.

“My approach sends M&M’s down a chute to start with. But I don’t stop the M&M for color recognition. Instead I use an iPhone to capture the color of the M&M as it is in free fall. As it is still falling, the iPhone talks to a Bluetooth module attached to an Arduino and that fires off the correct electro-magnet-controlled gate. This sends the M&M into the correct pot. Even though this is just a rough prototype, it is reasonably fast because the color recognition and path that the M&M takes down the chute is decided and determined whilst the M&M is moving under gravity.”

[Image via YouTube]