You run a recycling center. Your trucks bring in the recyclable items all mixed together: plastics, cans, and glass jars.
How can you easily separate them by some automated process?
At the end of the process, the plastics should be together, the cans should be together, and the glass jars should be together.
Please try this puzzle on your own before googling current solutions. You might come up with something better.
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I was just rereading this, having looked at it at the end of last semester with no idea. And this time, I thought of adding water to the large container where all of the items are placed in the center. So, water is added and all the plastic and aluminum items would float to the top, while the glass would sink to the bottom. Then a big scooper of some kind would come across the top of the water-filled container and pick up all the cans and plastics on the top and place them in another container. The water could then be removed for later use (with some kind of a pump or something), and the glass would then all be together in that container. Then, for the plastics and aluminum, they could be placed in a container with a really strong magnet somewhere inside, so the aluminum items would stick to it, and the plastics would not (if, in fact, aluminum is magnetic enough for this to work). Maybe there is a much easier way, but I just thought I'd throw this one out there!
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