We've always loved the satisfying clatter of a box full of LEGO bricks. But let's be honest, digging through heaps of pieces to find that one elusive 1x2 plate is a special kind of madness. It's even trickier when you're searching for a tiny red 1x1 tile in a sea of red bricks—much harder than finding it in a box of just 1x1 tiles. That's when it hit us: sorting by color is great for small sets, but when you're dealing with thousands of pieces, sorting by shape becomes essential.
So, we're out on a mission: build a machine that can sort LEGO bricks automatically by shape. Simple, right? Well, not exactly. It turns out that creating a brick sorting machine is like assembling a LEGO set without instructions—challenging but incredibly rewarding.