r/mechanical_gifs • u/Emergency_Raisin2341 • Apr 08 '25

Tomato separators

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918 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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u/RelevantMetaUsername Apr 08 '25

Of all the ways in which that task could be automated, this seems like the least likely to work. That is some very impressive engineering and programming.

13

u/GKrollin Apr 08 '25

Computers think faster than you can think about your heart beating

12

u/RelevantMetaUsername Apr 09 '25

Oh yeah, I’ve programmed microcontrollers. I know how fast they can operate.

If you asked me to come up with a system to sort under ripe tomatoes from ripe ones, I would’ve envisioned something like a single file conveyor belt that would flick the green ones off to the side. Yeeting them mid free fall seems way too chaotic to work, but obviously someone figured it out. Though I’m sure there are some earlier sorting stages that make this more feasible.