Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads • Hacker News Board

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#51

Post by michaelvoz » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #49

eropple wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you can't "smell cooking" (as I assume you meant to write), it means their HVAC works, and if you can't "see cooking" (the other reasonable option?), it means they know how to put up a wall. Your friends should be taking you with a grain of salt. "All their food" at Applebee's is not "microwaved frozen food"; I know plenty of people who got their start as cooks and chefs there. Something like three-quarters is m…

Looks like Applebee's is actually starting to cook items. I guess public pressure has changed their ways. Good for them. They absolutely were the king of microwaved food in chain sit downs for decades. Appetizers are all frozen and pre-packaged they just deep fried at almost all chains. Heck I worked at Ethan Allen Inn in Danbury CT a LONG time ago and all the meals were frozen and prepared in France and shipped over…

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#52

Post by VectorLock » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

jpm_sd wrote: post #46

Symmetry wrote: post #17

Nice to see them getting coverage, we were at the same startup incubator (Greentown) before we both moved on to larger offices. I can attest that the food this machine makes is, in fact, tasty.

The description in the article suggests that the machine does not actually make any of the food, it just measures and dispenses pre-cooked items into a bowl? So it's a glorified automatic dog feeder?

According to the article it rolls them around in some kind of barrel shaped apparatus to "cook" the food. That might be what the 'custom forged woks' are?

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#53

Post by baldfat » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

michaelvoz wrote: post #51

baldfat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like Applebee's is actually starting to cook items. I guess public pressure has changed their ways. Good for them. They absolutely were the king of microwaved food in chain sit downs for decades. Appetizers are all frozen and pre-packaged they just deep fried at almost all chains. Heck I worked at Ethan Allen Inn in Danbury CT a LONG time ago and all the meals were frozen and prepared in France and shipped over…

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

I stated specifically outside not inside. You smell cooking from outside since kitchen's are vented. Now in NYC sometimes the vents are on top of a 25 story building and that beautiful NYC post winter stench might cover it up.

If a restaurant has a ton of items on the menu I guarantee you that most of that is just prepared food that is microwaved.

Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants are not cooked.

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#54

Post by sharemywin » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #37

bhouston wrote: post #25

People seem to forget that nearly all frozen meals and frozen pizzas are all robotic made by the many millions per day. Just by very expensive, large and high speed robots. The innovation is now trying to make robots that are more flexible, smaller and low volume food production while not being super expensive.

I'm also aware of robots being used in fast food pizza preparation. In some markets the robots are what keep the franchisees profitable.

Are you talking about at the distribution centers?

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#55

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #53

michaelvoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

I stated specifically outside not inside. You smell cooking from outside since kitchen's are vented. Now in NYC sometimes the vents are on top of a 25 story building and that beautiful NYC post winter stench might cover it up. If a restaurant has a ton of items on the menu I guarantee you that most of that is just prepared food that is microwaved. Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants…

[deleted]

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#56

Post by wiremine » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #54

wiremine wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also aware of robots being used in fast food pizza preparation. In some markets the robots are what keep the franchisees profitable.

Are you talking about at the distribution centers?

No, I'm talking about the end franchisees that makes and bakes the pizzas for the consumer.

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#57

Post by eropple » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #53

michaelvoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

I stated specifically outside not inside. You smell cooking from outside since kitchen's are vented. Now in NYC sometimes the vents are on top of a 25 story building and that beautiful NYC post winter stench might cover it up. If a restaurant has a ton of items on the menu I guarantee you that most of that is just prepared food that is microwaved. Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants…

I don't think people are "mad". But you have a track record of saying trivially disproven, unsubstantiated things on HN and you backtrack poorly from them, then you sprinkle in weirdly fixated antagonism like "NYC post winter stench". It's bad posting, and it's wrong besides--the gap between "they don't cook anything" and "they fry frozen appetizers and cook everything else as anyone else would" is not so small that you can handwave it away with "lol people are mad". I mean, hell, Applebee's has had apply-fire-to-food line cooks for twenty years or more. I knew kids in high school who worked there (and we'd go there because we got a discount).

(And if there's any wind at all, modern roof-mount kitchen venting will ensure you don't smell much of anything if there's even moderate wind.)

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#58

Post by gamblor956 » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #39

bhouston wrote: post #25

People seem to forget that nearly all frozen meals and frozen pizzas are all robotic made by the many millions per day. Just by very expensive, large and high speed robots. The innovation is now trying to make robots that are more flexible, smaller and low volume food production while not being super expensive.

Applebees could be all cooked by Robots also since all their food is microwaved frozen food. (I tell friends if you can't smell (edit) cooking outside the restaurant they are just a microwave kitchen.) Fast food could also be run by robots fairly easily. I am imagining in 15 years most places will have robots doing the majority of cooking in restaurants. They won't spread disease, make food consistently, won't call o…

Your statement is technically libelous in nature, as you are accusing a major restaurant chain of not actually cooking any of there food based on spurious factual assumptions.

You may want to consider asking dang to delete your comment.

As a side note, if you walk into an Applebee's you can actually be seated at a table with a view of the kitchen, where you can watch the cooks at work. Applebee's may not be the best cooked food, but it is actually cooked by real live people, and has been for decades.

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#59

Post by oh_sigh » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #56

sharemywin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about at the distribution centers?

No, I'm talking about the end franchisees that makes and bakes the pizzas for the consumer.

Which ones specifically? At Dominos, I see people hand tossing dough and setting the ingredients whenever I go into one(not too frequently, don't judge me). I would imagine a group like Dominos would be the first to mechanize considering their scale?

Re: Spyce Kitchen, a robotic chef built by four recent M.I.T. grads

#60

Post by deadmetheny » Mon, Apr 09, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #53

michaelvoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just ate at The Modern in NYC the other day. The Modern is a Michelin star restaurant. I didn't smell cooking. Half the dining experience at Michelin restaurants is all about tightly controlling the inflow of stimuli to your senses. No good restaurant would want you to smell someone else's seafood cooking while you start on desert. Is your experience limited solely to to restaurants with poor HVAC?

I stated specifically outside not inside. You smell cooking from outside since kitchen's are vented. Now in NYC sometimes the vents are on top of a 25 story building and that beautiful NYC post winter stench might cover it up. If a restaurant has a ton of items on the menu I guarantee you that most of that is just prepared food that is microwaved. Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants…

>Seems like people are mad that I believe that most food in restaurants are not cooked.

Or, you know, you're just talking out your ass and it's not even remotely true. A lot of menu items just means there's either a lot of prep being done, a lot of the menu items have a reasonably similar set of bases, or both. There's always going to be a certain degree of Sysco stuff that's just bought and dunked into a fryer, but claiming most of a given menu is reheated from a microwave without any further backup other than "lol you can't smell it" is ridiculous.