Apple picking Robot Yesterday, we told you that Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa ID received a $132-thousand specialty crop grant from the Idaho State Department of Agriculture to develop an apple-picking robot. The goal of the project is to develop an orchard robot or “OrBot” that can be programmed to assist with harvesting fruit. Engineering student Marina DeVleig says images are run through a color filter then“So it runs through a color filter and usually takes photos of fruit’s position and when it runs through the color filter it does it based off an RGB threshold, object shape and size, it detects the apple and filters out by the biggest apple, from that finds the center and that controls the PID filter.