How to Feed Trading Cards to a Robot

Trading cards. Of all the materials handling problems to choose from, we landed on one where the objects to be moved are just four times the thickness of a human hair, incredibly sensitive to small variations in temperature and humidity, easily damaged, and have massive disparities in value and condition (ranging from newly opened, pristine cards, to ones that are water damaged and covered in sand – presumably because someone was playing cards on the beach? Stop that!). In consideration of all that, our first-generation PhyzBatch-9000s have done pretty darn well for themselves, having collectively sorted more than 142 million cards (over 275 tons!) as of this writing – but who’s counting? That was a rhetorical question; we are counting.

There is, of course, always room for improvement. A small handful of card types and conditions have proven to be very difficult for the Gen I PhyzBatch-9000s to handle. I will add the caveat that these troublesome cards are only problematic in multiples, a single instance of these types of cards should feed just fine. However, if there are a whole bunch of them all glommed together then we will have a problem. Namely, we have historically had difficulties with:

Extreme Taco Foil Cards

A well known issue with foils and holofoils across all types of trading cards is their propensity to curl into a “U” shape. This happens because the cards are composed of thin layers of different types of material (aluminum and paper, for instance), which expand and contract at different rates when exposed to varying temperature and humidity. These cards are colloquially known as “Pringles” or “tacos” because of their resemblance to those tasty food items.

Saddle Warped Cards

Similar to taco cards (both are examples of a hyperbolic paraboloid), saddle cards are those that have warped into the shape of a saddle, with pairs of opposite corners either being lifted or lowered. Saddle warp usually happens when cards are stored in damp conditions, or in such a way that they are not held flat.

Certain Print Runs of Specific MTG Sets (Ice Age, for instance)

For whatever reason, there were a small number of sets from Magic: The Gathering which were printed on a different type of card stock – most notably, Ice Age. These cards tend to be quite grippy, and stick together more than other cards.

Full Face Holofoil Pokémon Cards

There are certain types of holofoil treatments which are particularly tacky, some of the “V” type Pokémon cards for instance. When there are more than one of these special holofoil cards pressed together within a stack of cards, they really don’t want to slide apart!

You may be thinking, “What!? You pushed a card processing robot into the world before it could handle every possible card in every possible condition with complete reliability? You monsters!” Well, you are not the only one, and we have fielded plenty of critical feedback because of this. In our defence, I will offer three points:

(1) We did conduct years of field testing with multiple machines spread across a network of beta trial customers to make sure our automatic card sorters were functioning as intended – so it’s not like we were shooting from the hip with our original feed system.

(2) There comes a time in the development of any product where you just have to launch. Engineers will, and often do, continue to improve upon a system long past the point where the benefits of the improvements matter to anyone. This is an easy trap to fall into (I’ve been there plenty of times myself), but the truth of the matter is that you cannot possibly know what problems a product will encounter until it’s out there in the world doing its thing.

(3) What we launched with was about the simplest possible feeding system imaginable, and simplicity usually makes for better consistency and reliability. But there are exceptions to every rule (such as using a conjunction at the beginning of sentence), and we uncovered one here with the Gen I card feeding system!

And so it has been, that our machines have required much more babysitting than we had anticipated. Some of our more candid customers have likened the PhyzBatch-9000 to being a “power tool” instead of the pie-in-the-sky, fully automated solution which we would all prefer it to be. Well, we have heard you loud and clear, and our Engineering Team has now produced what we lovingly refer to as the Feed Fixer 20,000 (or FF20K)!

<Pause for excited gasps, oohs, and ahs>

Yes, I am aware the above image depicts a Tesla Cybertruck (which bears no resemblance to our FF20K, by the way), but our Engineering Team wasn't super keen on me posting images of our prototype development directly to our website. You'll just have to take me at my word that the FF20K is about the coolest looking thing imaginable - way cooler than the Cybertruck. A low bar, you say? Perhaps, but I digress!

The test results with this new and improved card feeder have been nothing short of phenomenal. Each one of the historically problematic card types and conditions listed above feed through this new system without so much as a stutter. I have personally enjoyed having a prototype FF20K on my desk for the past two weeks, loading full hoppers (~1,750 cards) of cards one after another without any stoppages. While this bad mam-jam has not yet hit our production line, we are sending out a limited number of prototypes for field trials this week. We want to confirm the efficacy of this new system with a small group of customers prior to a fleet-wide launch to make sure the FF20K is going to meet everyone’s expectations.

One of the best parts of this new and improved design is that it’s completely retrofittable onto our existing Gen I machines! There is no need to swap out an existing PhyzBatch-9000, we’ll just send out a kit which can be installed on location. We are aiming for the retrofit procedure to be simple enough that it can reasonably be completed in less than an hour.

I’m really excited for this upgrade. It has been a long time coming, and for that I do apologize. There are good reasons this update has taken us as long as it has. Research and development is hard. Running a business is hard. Raising kids is hard. Bread that is left out in the open for too long is hard. Diamonds… you get the picture. BUT, we really are doing our best and continuously trying to provide our customers with the best possible trading card sorting and processing solution on the market. We have a wonderful, passionate, and highly intelligent team, and we are all 100% dedicated to this pursuit.

Between this new FF20K system and our refactored codebase, the PhyzBatch-9000 will be entering 2024 as a whole new animal. And not a moment too soon, as we will be launching into Australia, the EU, and the UK in the beginning of the new year. The increased reliability and performance afforded by these new improvements will be most welcome as we endeavour upon overseas service and support. Additionally, once the FF20K is fully proven in the field, we will finally be offering our machines for outright purchase. Many LGS owners have let us know that the only way they’ll entertain the acquisition of a PhyzBatch is if they are able to own it. Again, we have heard you, and this is something we plan to offer starting in the first quarter of 2024.

Lots of good stuff is coming down the pike! Stay tuned, and have a wonderful winter season :)