Thoughtless Acts - Resistors

These photos document a messy situation in my 102A Lab (Where Erich is my GSI). In our labs we use various resistors when building circuits. However, when students are done with their lab and begin to disassemble their circuits, very few take the time to read the value on their resistor and place it in it's designated place. Instead the choose to toss the resistor in a jumbled pile of other resistors and pieces of wire for someone (probably Erich) to sort out at a later date.

Just behind the pile of resistors that everyone chooses to contribute towards, there is a very well organized bank of drawers with a dedicated place for each resistance value. However, many students do not know the resistor color code by heart and may not know the proper place to place the resistor, but my bet remains on lazyness.

Two Possible Design Solutions:

1) Provide a color code key so the resistance values are easy to read off of the resistors themselves. Also, in addition to the numerical label on each of the drawers include the resistor color code for easy matching.

2)Guessing that laziness is the key driver for the resistor pile, develop an automated device that automatically tests the resistance value of each resistor placed into a hopper and sort it accordingly for easy placement into their respective dedicated spots by the GSI (Erich) at a later date.