MEMS 411: ASME Ball Bearing Sorter

The ASME Student Design Competition focused on the design and construction of a ball bearing sorter. This ball bearing sorter must be capable of sorting 2 sizes of ball bearings, being 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch. For each size, there are 3 different bearing materials, brass, steel, and acetal plastic. The device is intended to have the bearings fed into a hopper, and then fully autonomously sort the bearings. The autonomous sorting was to transport the various bearings into 6 different packing stations, one for each size and material bearing. These packing stations must be easily removable. This design project was designed for the customer, Dr. Jackson Potter. Dr. Potter had three main performance goals for the ball bearing sorter. First, the device must be no larger than 20 x 20 x 20 inches while remaining under 15 lbs in weight. The device we designed and constructed weighed 11 lbs while remaining under the required volume. The second performance goal is to sort the bearings in under a minute. Our device was capable of sorting the ball bearings in an average time of 12.9 seconds meeting this goal. The last goal was for the ball bearing sorter to have a 90 percent sorting accuracy. This performance goals was not met as the device was capable of consistently sorting at a 75 percent accuracy, with the highest being 85 percent. Along with each performance goal, safety was a top priority. Through design and construction, the safety of the operator was prioritized to ensure the health and well being of the operator.