Patent ID: 7987990

Claim:
A method for sorting construction toys comprising building blocks having a plurality of predetermined shapes and sizes, comprising: providing a sorting device, comprising: an opening at a top of said device provided to allow for blocks to be introduced into said device; a plurality of superposed, removable sorting bins, wherein each bin defines a plurality of rounded or circular sorting openings in a bottom portion of said bin; the sorting openings in each of the plurality of bins being sized such that for an individual bin, certain building blocks of a predetermined size are allowed to pass through said openings while a remainder of said blocks are retained in said bin; a bottom-most bin having no openings in a bottom of said bin so as to collect building blocks that pass through the sorting openings in each bin above; a top-most bin of said plurality of sorting bins contains openings in the bottom of said bin configured to allow blocks having sizes 4×4 or smaller to filter through said openings to a first intermediate bin; the first intermediate bin, of said plurality of sorting bins contains openings in the bottom of said bin configured to allow blocks having sizes 3×3 or smaller to filter through said openings to a second intermediate bin; the second intermediate bin of said plurality of sorting bins contains openings in the bottom of said bin configured to allow blocks having sizes 2×2 or smaller to filter through said openings to a third intermediate bin; the third intermediate bin of said plurality of sorting bins contains openings in the bottom of said bin configured to allow blocks having sizes 1×1 or smaller to filter through said openings to the bottom-most bin; a plurality of releasable binding mechanisms, at least one for each bin, configured to hold each of the bins in place during the sorting; a plurality of casters mounted on a bottom of said apparatus to allow for said apparatus to roll; providing a mixture of unsorted building blocks having a plurality of shapes and sizes; introducing the mixture of unsorted building blocks into the top opening of the sorting device; holding the remaining bins in place by way of the binding mechanism whereby the bins do not move independent of each other; applying forces to the sorting device to move pieces in each bin towards respective openings in the bins; whereby the building blocks are sorted into appropriate bins according to size and shape as determined by the openings in each bin.