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posted by martyb on Sunday September 02 2018, @08:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the Could-I-Please-Have-My-Robot-Medium-Rare? dept.

Technology Review reports on a startup restaurant https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611788/engineering-lunch/ that features specialized robots to assemble ingredients and wok-fry them for healthy fast food.

As customers placed their orders, Spyce's automated food storage bins (known as hoppers) reliably fed refrigerated ingredients through a portioning system that measures precise quantities into a red box that zips along a horizontal track. That box, called the runner, collects ingredients and delivers them to one of seven induction-heated woks that spin to tumble the food so it cooks evenly at 450 °F. ...

The development process had some low points,

Even so, their cooking robot was still a work in progress. That fall, it dumped half-cooked food straight onto the counter in front of a potential investor. One outcome of that fiasco: each of the restaurant's automated woks now has a sensor telling it whether there's a bowl underneath.

These MechEs recognized that they might not know much about the restaurant business,

Even as they were perfecting their automated kitchen technology, the founders knew they needed more than technical expertise to develop a successful robotic restaurant. So Farid got in touch with restaurateur Daniel Boulud, the chef-owner of multiple award-winning restaurants and author of nine cookbooks, by guessing his e-mail address in five tries—and the team ultimately convinced him to serve as Spyce's culinary director and invest in the concept.

Check out the link to see how they managed to make kale (reasonably) palatable...


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  • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday September 02 2018, @09:16PM (4 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Sunday September 02 2018, @09:16PM (#729644)

    Cooking is not rocket science. It's been done by robots for decades at factory scales.

    If you know how to do it, most cooking is done in seconds of interaction time with a bunch of waiting in between.

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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Monday September 03 2018, @03:05AM (3 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Monday September 03 2018, @03:05AM (#729730) Journal

    Ummm... where do we think "TV Dinners" came from? Does any of us believe a chef personally prepared these one by one?

    Or did a chef instruct a machine how to do it, then the machine makes millions of them?

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Aiwendil on Monday September 03 2018, @07:43AM (2 children)

      by Aiwendil (531) on Monday September 03 2018, @07:43AM (#729780) Journal

      Unless you mean the specific brand but rather pre-made meals that just is popped into the oven/microwave oven I would think they are being made by the ingredients being prepared in bulk in big vats, then assembled in the belt-assembly-worker fashion, and then popped into commercial kitchen style ovens.

      (Sorry for the un-subtitled swedish - gist and process is made clear by video alone) But here are two visits to a place that makes pre-made food:
      Pies [youtube.com]
      Lasagna [youtube.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03 2018, @08:04AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03 2018, @08:04AM (#729783)

        I was of the idea the TV dinner prep was more like a candy factory or bottling plant... the main reason humans were even around is they know what to do when things go wrong, and make sure no vermin hang around the plant.

        Someone getting a bonus serving of mouse or cockroach in their dinner isn't gonna be a happy camper. We haven't quite developed sufficient marketing skill to make the customer think the free serving is something to cheer for... something for nothing...winning the lotto, whatever.

      • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday September 03 2018, @09:23AM

        by Aiwendil (531) on Monday September 03 2018, @09:23AM (#729801) Journal

        Realised that people might misunderstand a thing here so I should clarify.

        It is a thing of scale really. In the range between a few dozen and a couple of thousand (tens) units per day is where assembly style workers are best, they also are needed for things where robotics just isn't there yet.

        However once you get past a couple of thousand units a day a fully automated conveyer belt assembly is prefered, for some things (like lasagna) the robots are quite simple but is space-consuming.
        (Overall however, the complexity for making lasagna in a fully automated manner is roughly the same as the one for making bread in a fully automated manner, you only need a few more passes (one for each layer))

        So while the biggest brands are fully automated most are assembly-line-workers (and quite frankly, a market as small as sweden (pop: 10 mil) doesn't warrant a fully automated plant)