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

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

#2
I've been predicting robotic fast food for a decade now. And it's here! By cooking with no human hand ever coming into contact with the ingredients or utensils, clearly a health benefit is accrued. And by steam-cleaning the cooker periodically, quality is improved.

I'd envisioned a somewhat different robot. I thought the ingredients could be tube-delivered like caulking guns, on a rotating 'tool carousel' so you could cook different recipes by selecting and timing. And process vertically so you avoid most 'conveyor belt' issues. Finally do it as drive-thru with automated ordering (touch screen/phone app) to eliminate the rest of the human factor.

The result should be good quality, fast food at a radically cheaper price.

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

#3

I've been predicting robotic fast food for a decade now. And it's here! By cooking with no human hand ever coming into contact with the ingredients or utensils, clearly a health benefit is accrued. And by steam-cleaning the cooker periodically, quality is improved. I'd envisioned a somewhat different robot. I thought the ingredients could be tube-delivered like caulking guns, on a rotating 'tool carousel' so you coul…

> no human hand... clearly a health benefit

That is a non sequitur. The most dangerous illness associated with fast food (poor nutrition aside) such as E. coli[1] and Hep A[2] are most readily attributed to ingredient suppliers, not improper food handling.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2015/o26-11-15/index.html

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm

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

#5
post #3

I've been predicting robotic fast food for a decade now. And it's here! By cooking with no human hand ever coming into contact with the ingredients or utensils, clearly a health benefit is accrued. And by steam-cleaning the cooker periodically, quality is improved. I'd envisioned a somewhat different robot. I thought the ingredients could be tube-delivered like caulking guns, on a rotating 'tool carousel' so you coul…

> no human hand... clearly a health benefit That is a non sequitur. The most dangerous illness associated with fast food (poor nutrition aside) such as E. coli[1] and Hep A[2] are most readily attributed to ingredient suppliers, not improper food handling. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2015/o26-11-15/index.html [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm

And who handles the ingredients improperly? Doesn't refrigerate them sufficiently? Uses expired ingredients? Fallible humans. Lets remove them from the equation.

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

#6
I'm surprised Moley (http://www.moley.com/) didn't get a mention. I'm super excited about robotic food preparation, especially in the case of consumer facing robotics where its a unit in your own kitchen.

With that said, from the robotics progress I've seen/studied, more fundamental robotics progress needs to be made first. The approaches used right now are just not durable/reliable enough for mass market adoption. Best of luck to that team though.

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

#7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no human hand... clearly a health benefit That is a non sequitur. The most dangerous illness associated with fast food (poor nutrition aside) such as E. coli[1] and Hep A[2] are most readily attributed to ingredient suppliers, not improper food handling. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2015/o26-11-15/index.html [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm

And who handles the ingredients improperly? Doesn't refrigerate them sufficiently? Uses expired ingredients? Fallible humans. Lets remove them from the equation.

A robot chef is programmed by a human, so the human element has not been removed.

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

#10

I'm surprised Moley ( http://www.moley.com/ ) didn't get a mention. I'm super excited about robotic food preparation, especially in the case of consumer facing robotics where its a unit in your own kitchen. With that said, from the robotics progress I've seen/studied, more fundamental robotics progress needs to be made first. The approaches used right now are just not durable/reliable enough for mass market adoption.…

Moley looks like a science fiction pipe dream right now and would require an absolutely massive number of leaps in modern robotics - control, vision, whatever. We're a long way off such a system.

Putting junk in a bowl is a much simpler feat. Also hard for robotics to win much on I should think because the labor for putting food into a bowl is not terribly expensive as is (and imo not a particularly exciting market) - see Eatsa. Though it's still cool that they end-to-end the process with dishwashing (according to video).

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