Flippy the robot was built with one function in mind: flipping hamburgers. Here in America today is Memorial Day, the unofficial start to the summer season. Grilling is a tradition and a few months ago Miso Robotics in partnership with CaliBurger unveiled their burger flipping robot.
FLIPPY | Miso Robotics from Miso Robotics on Vimeo.
The mission of Miso Robotics is to "develop technology that assists and empowers chefs to make food consistently and perfectly, at prices everyone can afford." The main function of Flippy is 180 degree transfer of hamburgers but on the company webpage different applications and end affectors are shown so the robot can also assist with frying, food prep, and plating operations.
Beyond the novel application, there's not a lot of Flippy that looks revolutionary. FLIR vision system is used to tell the robot where different objects are located on the grill. The robot also knows when to move aside for a user in the field of operation. Stainless steel construction is used for, I assume, food safety purposes and a familiar-looking teaching pendant sits at the robot's base.
The actual grabbing of the burger might be the biggest innovation - I grew up watching cartoons believing that a robot would take a spatula and occasionally fling a burger or pancake high into the air or ceiling. Flippy uses an enclosed gripper, encasing the burger in a hollow cylinder and then turning the meat upside down. It also looks like there are soft membranes on each side of the flipping apparatus to make sure the burger doesn't shift back and forth during movement.
Flippy is a great entry into the large catalog of engineers trying out robots in any repeatable application. It's great to see futuristic technology in every aspect of life but every new routine will require extensive studies deciding if the time saved and efficiencies gained are worth the expense.
(images courtesy of Miso Robotics)