The Sequel Asimov Never Imagined: "I, Burger Flipper"

[chromedome]

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/08/24/640511068/fad-or-the-future-robot-made-burgers-wow-the-crowds-in-san-francisco

[Smithy]

I'd like to see a video of that machine in action. The burgers sound good, and the air quality / worker health aspect is impressive.

[liuzhou]

Automated cooking (and service) was introduced to China about ten years ago. It lasted about a month. Once the (limited) novelty interest passed no one wanted it.

[Auspicious]

Here is a video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/06/flippy-burger-grilling-robot-fast-food-orig.cnn

 

I'm frankly not very impressed. There is too much human interaction woven around the automated functions. I have to think a little creativity with the technology for conveyor broilers (think Quiznos) and automated pick-and-place (the way printed circuit boards are assembled for solder flowing). I don't see any reason why a human couldn't load raw materials into the machine and take completely finished burgers off the other end for plating or wrapping. The $60-100k price point would be hard to match but I think $150k might be achievable with small volumes.

Edited August 26, 2018 by Auspicious
bad link (log)

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, Auspicious said:

Here is a video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/06/flippy-burger-grilling-robot-fast-food-orig.cnn

 

I'm frankly not very impressed. There is too much human interaction woven around the automated functions. I have to think a little creativity with the technology for conveyor broilers (think Quiznos) and automated pick-and-place (the way printed circuit boards are assembled for solder flowing). I don't see any reason why a human couldn't load raw materials into the machine and take completely finished burgers off the other end for plating or wrapping. The $60-100k price point would be hard to match but I think $150k might be achievable with small volumes.

 

 

I agree that the burger-flipping robot in this video leaves a lot to be desired except as an exercise in robotics, but this isn't the same machine. Flippy, the machine in the video link above, is at Caliburger, a restaurant in Pasadena (near Los Angeles). The machine in the first post is at Creator, a restaurant in a San Francisco neighborhood. The Creator article claims that the humans load all the supplies into the machine and the finished product comes out the end, in their containers, all done in a transparent enclosure so folks can watch. It sounds much closer to your vision of a proper burger-assembling machine.

 

No doubt someone will post a YouTube video about Creator before long.

[Auspicious]

Thanks @Smithy. You helped me find the subject. https://techcrunch.com/video/a-robot-cooks-burgers-at-startup-restaurant-creator/ . This one I'm much more impressed by. They solved the structural stability problem with their take on the old McDonalds McDLT container although that still leaves it to the customer to do final assembly. It's much like what I proposed which is indication that engineering is engineering. It's the fresh idea that is important, not the implementation. Any old engineer can turn the crank to make something once the idea is in place.

 

The next step (which may be in hand) is to accommodate requests: "whole wheat bun, no mustard, extra mayo." Most of that is just controls with a little bit more robotics.

 

WARNING warped sense of humor

 

Next step is automated soylent green.

 

*grin*