In high school, our second year engineering classes required us to build a skittle sorter out of lego and some sensors/software.
The only requirement was a hopper for the teacher to dump the skittles into at the beginning. She would have a different amount for each group that was pre-counted and our numbers had to match hers at the end within a certain % of error.
It was a month+ long project and really fun to see each team's solution in how they moved/sorted/stored the final product. Some teams used long conveyor belts, others used short stacked belts, etc. It was all really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Designing a hopper was a recently project for me and it was really fun. I learned a bunch about mass flow and realized that there are all sorts of interesting industrial problems involving hoppers.
The only requirement was a hopper for the teacher to dump the skittles into at the beginning. She would have a different amount for each group that was pre-counted and our numbers had to match hers at the end within a certain % of error.
It was a month+ long project and really fun to see each team's solution in how they moved/sorted/stored the final product. Some teams used long conveyor belts, others used short stacked belts, etc. It was all really interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it!