Building from scratch a sorting machine that works (however accurately) is no small feat for a student. It would be a great multidisciplinary project. Imagine

Building from scratch a sorting machine that works (however accurately) is no small feat for a student. It would be a great multidisciplinary project. Imagine a group of student only had the rough scheme: which pieces do they need, maybe some templates, but then it's up to them to actually implement / build the thing. Heck a university could even host a competition, where the machine with the fastest throughput + lowest % of errors wins :)