London technology company Moley Robotics has cooked up a product that can recreate dishes of top chefs in the comfort and convenience of a home kitchen. The robot kitchen, which Moley Robotics will make available to consumers this year, comes with a digital library of over 2,000 dishes.
With the new product, top chefs and cooking enthusiasts alike will be able to record their movements as they prepare meals and subsequently share recipes with other customers of the robot kitchen.
Moley Robotics unveiled their robot chef at Hannover Messe, a world trade fair for industrial technology in Germany in 2015. Comprised of two robotic arms in a specially designed kitchen, which includes a stove top, utensils, and a sink, the device can reproduce the movements of a human chef to create a meal from scratch.
Moley Robotics decided to model the robot’s movements after the 2011 winner of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Master Chef, Mr. Tim Anderson. Mr. Anderson put on motion-capturing gloves and wristbands to demonstrate a recipe five times. The programmers then combined the motions, and chose the smoothest and cleanest demonstrations of the recipes for the robot, according to TIME.
Courtesy of TIME
The prototype system showed in Hannover was a collaboration between Mr. Sebastian Conran, who designed the cooking utensils, DYSEGNO, and the Yachtline company which created the kitchen furniture. The Shadow Robot Company, which makes products for the nuclear industry and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), made the physical robot, according to moley.com.
Since the 2015 Hanover Messe fair, Moley Robotics has worked on perfecting the product. As the robot does not have eyes, it cannot locate ingredients or utensils that might be moved or knocked out of place. The Moley Robotics team admits that the robot does not have the same advantages as human touch. The company is working on improving the robot’s functions and expanding its capabilities before sale, according to TIME.
Computer scientist and inventor of the robotic kitchen Mr. Mark Oleynik expressed his vision and motivation in creating the robot chef.
“The idea is not to just save labor. Rather, it is a technology that can help users explore different cuisines and become even better cooks,” Mr. Oleynik said in an interview with medium.com.
Sacred Heart Greenwich Director of Educational Technology, Upper School Computer Teacher, and Co-Director of SophieConnect Mr. Karl Haeseler shared the benefits of robotics and the potential growth of robotic technology in the future.
“I think the robotic industry is going to grow because now there is a possibility for robotic use and creation since robots can think for themselves independently. Robots can do unsafe experiments in place of humans, and do things better and more precise. Within five to ten years, there is going to be an explosion in applications for robotics,” Mr. Haeseler said.
Similarly, Sacred Heart junior Erin Cleary expressed her excitement in hearing about the robot chef and hopes that this new technology can help improve her cooking skills.
“I remember seeing this product on the news and was intrigued because of its ability to cook, clean, and prepare a vast amount of recipes. It is easier to learn how to cook by watching a chef prepare the food, and this robot’s movements are programmed by professional chefs,” Erin said. “It is quite astonishing and exciting that I can learn and improve my cooking skills by watching a robot do it for me, and then also have it record my movements so it can prepare those recipes when I am too tired to cook.”
– Kristen Davis, Content Editor
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Moley Robotics serves up a robot chef
January 20, 2017
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