Flippy

Flippy – a combination of motors and sensors with cutting-edge technology – is a robot that can flip burgers.

Image Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-27/flippy-fast-food-restaurant-robot-arm

How does Flippy work?

With deep learning, Flippy detects the location of objects on the grill and other equipment with high accuracy. Hence, once the human has arranged the patties, Flippy flips the burgers and monitors their temperatures via thermal imaging. This way, it functions in real time and ensures each patty is cooked. Indeed, Flippy can also simultaneously clean the spatula and cook, or cook patties based on a given schedule.

What else can it do?

Not only can Flippy fry, it can also grill. As such, the use of Flippy extends beyond burger flipping as it can be reprogrammed to cook different items, making it incredibly useful for fast food companies. And let’s not forget that Flippy is AI-based, so it learns from past experiences and gets better at flipping overtime!

Side note – the price

Unfortunately, Flippy is $60,000 (as you can tell not too cheap). But, many firms are still open to the concept of Flippy, especially as the pandemic has urged clean, non-human contact practices when making food. As of right now, the burger chain White Castle is testing the efficacy of Flippy in one of their Chicago stores.

What’s next?

If White Castle’s trial proves a success, the use of Flippy might extend to other restaurants, leading to more efficient means of food production and lower costs in terms of both time and money. In fact, Flippy is not made to replace humans but rather work alongside them, so we will have to wait and see if Flippy becomes the norm a few years time. Who knows, maybe Flippy will soon start becoming a household appliance too!

Sources

https://insidebigdata.com/2020/08/10/ai-under-the-hood-flippy-the-robot/

https://aidaily.co.uk/articles/flippy

Written by Amanda Y