This is a great device. Funny story, though.

I received my M&M Color Sorter last week. My associate (I’ll call him Wimfred) and I immediately set to the task of sorting my favorite food into it’s element food groups. The burning question to me of course was —- can it keep up with my chewing. As an aside here, Wimfred is a faster chewer than me, but when he really gets going, multi-colored shards tend to leak out of his mouth around the sides. I find it necessary to disqualify him in races for that very reason. And I make him get the vacuum out too.

So, Wimfred and I set to work assembling the unit. Pretty slick. It required no lubrication whatsoever. Once up and running, I was quickly disappointed, however. At full speed, the servo got sloppy and failed more than it succeeded.

Noting this, and not to be dismayed, I recalled that I had a servo that I had previously disassembled from a blower on an old MOPAR 460. Hauling this out of the basement, I hooked it up to an old Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine (Briggs & Stratton Model LS45 4.5hp) while Wimfred proceeded to perform some judicious filing of the placement rotor assembly.

In less than two hours, we were ready for the test. The unit was mounted on my laboratory desk with the starter chord in easy reach on top. I pulled the chord, and of course nothing happened. I had neglected to set the choke a bit and prime the carb by pushing the rubber nipple. After doing that, I pulled again while Wimfred leaned over the unit to witness the sorting.

Whoa! You wouldn’t believe how noisy it was. I mean loud. Truly bowel loosening.

Regaining my composure, I noticed that Wimfred wasn’t watching that closely anymore. He was Kneeling behind the file cabinet with brightly-colored splotches on his safety goggles. Just then I began to notice some stinging in the upper regions of my groin. I immediately realized what the problem was. Wimfred hadn’t payed enough attention to detail when he was filing the armature. The M&Ms were whizzing about the room at, I believe, over 100 mph (~87 knots)—completely missing the little plastic jars affixed below the unit.

All wasn’t lost however. I noticed that the splotches on the walls were neatly aligned by color. Apparently M&M colors can be sorted by their varying aerodynamic properties with green flying best, and would you believe, blue the worst? Really. No kidding.