This is a cute story about over-engineering and thinking outside the box to find the simplest solution, but anyone with manufacturing experience can tell you th

This is a cute story about over-engineering and thinking outside the box to find the simplest solution, but anyone with manufacturing experience can tell you that many factories have compressed air lines at each machine, and frequently use it to blow bad parts off off of a conveyor/feed rail. American manufacturing factories are actually homes to tremendous ingenuity and practicality. To an outsider they may seem loud, dirty, and disorganized, but the engineers inside routinely deal with issues like "how can we catch bad parts before they roll off the line, using spare parts, scrap metal, and a $20 budget?" I have seen some amazing Rube Goldberg feeding systems that can outperform expensive laser/optical/diverter gate packages.