Please Don't Taste the Rainbow

Today I did what everyone wants to do on their days off from work. I went to work. 
For context, right now I'm employed at a makerspace at UCalgary. I needed to 3D print a case for my Zoom audio recorder and I get paranoid if I leave the printer for too long because that's always when it takes its opportunity to fail. So I packed up all my sensors that I wanted to test out and worked on them in the makerspace. 

I started with plugging in one of my Arduino Pro Minis. The LEDs light up when it's plugged into the computer. But I downloaded the drivers and it wasn't being recognized at all on the ports. Either the board is dead right out of the box, or my FTDI adapter is dead right out of the box. I will check with my other boards to confirm. I ordered 6 of them, so I doubt all 6 are duds. 

I setup three different colour sensors to compare: APDS-9960, AS7262, TCS34725. 
My APDS-9960 was dead out of the box, so that's a shame. That's the cool one too with gesture sensing
:(
The AS7262 is the one that gives 6 bins of colours. The LED on it was broken (or there was something else I had to do to get it to work...? I followed the adafruit hookup guide though...). So I setup an LED to shine right next to the sensor and it made it work a lot better. 

I liked the TCS3472 the best between the two because (other being fully functional) it seems to be more distinct when showing the difference between RGB than the AS7262. That clarity is important when programming for instruments. It also works when you put a transparent plastic in front of it, so that's good to keep in mind while making!

​Photo-resistors are also dumb. All of mine work, but it's impossible to set a consistent threshold on them. When I try to cover them completely, the values are not within the same ballpark each time.