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'Flippy,' the Fast Food Robot, Turned Off For Being Too Slow (chicagotribune.com) 126

Posted by msmash from the see-you-soon dept.
He was supposed to revolutionize a California fast food kitchen, churning out 150 burgers per hour without requiring a paycheck or benefits. But after a single day of working as a cook at a Caliburger location in Pasadena this week, Flippy the burger-flipping robot has stopped flipping. From a report: In some ways, Flippy was a victim of his own success. Inundated with customers eager to see the machine in action this week, Cali Group, which runs the fast food chain, quickly realized the robot couldn't keep up with the demand. They decided instead to retrain the restaurant staff to work more efficiently alongside Flippy, according to USA Today. Temporarily decommissioned, patrons encountered a sign Thursday noting that Flippy would be "cooking soon," the paper reported. "Mostly it's the timing," Anthony Lomelino, the Chief Technology Officer for Cali Group told the paper. "When you're in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule. Choreographing the movements of what you do, when and how you do it."
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'Flippy,' the Fast Food Robot, Turned Off For Being Too Slow More

'Flippy,' the Fast Food Robot, Turned Off For Being Too Slow

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  • ...not switched off fast enough to not show up here as a dupe.

    • ...not switched off fast enough to not show up here as a dupe.

      Which is why /. will be shutting down their robot "Posty" -- similar problems as with Flippy.

      "When you're in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule. Choreographing the movements of what you do, when and how you do it."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What are you talking about? I don't see this story duped.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 )

      Nooooo! Flippy want to live!

  • I have seen the future, and it sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @06:36PM (#56236247)

    "Mostly it's the timing," Anthony Lomelino, the Chief Technology Officer for Cali Group told the paper. "When you're in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule. Choreographing the movements of what you do, when and how you do it."

    Yeah, that sounds like a great place to work. Take one of the only pleasant things about working at a fast food restaurant - socializing with your friends/coworkers - and then tell them to knock it off and just serve the robot.

    Six months from now, they're going to have trouble hiring anyone.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Women probably used to socialize while they washed the clothes down by the river. Not so anymore. You don't even have to leave your house to do the laundry!
      You probably had someone bring a check to your desk at work every 2-4 weeks back in the day. Not with direct deposit!
      You used to have to go shopping for groceries. Not with curbside delivery!

      All they did was discover that they need to get few more of these robots. If the work sucks as much as you suggest, it's the perfect job for a machine.

    • Service jobs require providing services to people, whether that's a burger or fixing their plumbing. This all requires human interaction and that robot is never going to take over that job.

      This is what's so silly about the whole argument that raising the minimum wage will eliminate jobs, the vast majority of minimum wage jobs that still exist are service jobs and very few of those can be replaced by a robot without people simply getting fed up with the robot and going to the store or business without a robo

      • Re:I have seen the future, and it sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:33PM (#56236531) Homepage

        Service jobs require providing services to people, whether that's a burger or fixing their plumbing. This all requires human interaction and that robot is never going to take over that job.

        Really? If I enter my order on a touch screen, it's cooked by a robot and delivered in a self-service kiosk and it's the same burger... who really appreciates the social interaction with the McD/BK staff? Usually my interaction is "Next, please" "Hi, I'll have [order]." "Anything else?" "No, that's it." "That'll be $X" *pay* *wait* "[order]" "Thanks" *eat* *put trash in bin on way out*. If you want to talk about something that could be replaced with a very small shell script it's the social interaction. I don't know how it could possibly get less personal or less meaningful. And you don't go there for the culinary experience, you go there for standardized grub. A robot is perfect for giving you a consistent experience. Of course if I go to a high-end restaurant with a waiter and a real chef my expectations are different, but it's different leagues.

        And even three star Michelin restaurants have "standard" dishes, like they're training the staff to exactly replicate whatever the master chef has cooked up. Granted it's an entirely different level of service but it's not really that unique, personal service that we'd like to imagine. If I go to a steakhouse and get a prime steak cooked to perfection I'll probably put up with a whole lot of other downsides, whatever you think the service is I think it's a small auxiliary. The service is not why I go to your steakhouse and poor service probably won't make me leave as long as the product tastes to high heaven. And the product can be made by a robot.

        • And when the robot fucks up your burger, or you want it made a certain way and can't get the robot to do it, then what do you do? Just eat it anyway, like a good little pleb? Maybe you get lucky and the manager goes back there and makes it for you himself -- and now you're back to 'human customer service'.

          I don't want robots making my burgers. Or steak. Or anything else that I go to any sort of restaurant to eat. I want a PERSON making my food, and a PERSON bringing it to me. Otherwise I'll just stay hom

          • Re:I have seen the future, and it sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

            by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:52PM (#56236613)

            Good for you. Nobody else gives a shit. I just want my food, I don't care if its cooked by a person, a robot, or if the cow jumps on the grill voluntarily. I don't go to the restaurant for interaction, I go because I don't want to cook. So long as its good, I don't care what prepared it.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            A robot in the kitchen is one less pair of human hands that didn't get washed after taking a dump, one less human mouth to sneeze on my food, etc. That's comforting to me at a fast food restaurant.

            Do you mind automated butchering [youtube.com] of meat and how would you know?

            If your order isn't to spec (less likely of course with a robot as it doesn't get bored, tired, or misread the order), you'd do just what you do now - complain to the human manager who should make it right.

          • Wow, you must have some really good humans cooking your steak. Instead of a robot cooking to an absolute, repeatable perfect temperature, you want some kid making variable temperature steaks? The last two times I ate at high end steak house with 5 or more people, at least one person has a poorly cooked steak, one has perfect, and the rest falls in between. At least one person who should send it back lives with it so not to hold up the rest of dinner. I welcome the food making robots. Humans fuck up, a l

          • And when the robot fucks up your burger, or you want it made a certain way and can't get the robot to do it, then what do you do?

            So, when you go to McDonalds and ask for your burger medium rare, what generally happens?

            I'm curious, because you seem to be conflating real food with fast food in your complaint.

            At the moment, the robots are coming for fast food. And I'm with you, to a point. When a robot can cook a perfect rare duck breast with crispy skin, I'll have a robot cook for me at restaurants. Because I've had chefs fuck that up. But until a robot can do that consistently, I won't be visiting that restaurant.

            I don't care if it's

          • or you want it made a certain way

            We're talking about fast food here. Ever successfully ordered a medium rare BigMac? As for choice, you already have that. And if you're as fussy as you claim you wouldn't be in this kind of restaurant anyway but likely off somewhere downtown insulting the waiter for no good reason.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          And you don't go there [fast food] for the culinary experience, you go there for standardized grub.

          Actually, you go to a fast food place because you want something tasty, cheap and now. Emphasis on the now part.

          whatever you think the service is I think it's a small auxiliary. The service is not why I go to your steakhouse and poor service probably won't make me leave as long as the product tastes to high heaven. And the product can be made by a robot.

          To you perhaps... but not to most people. To most people service is as important as the food. If I get bad service at a restaurant, I certainly wont be going back not matter how good the food is.

    • I don't think that the CTO is referring to socializing. He is talking about communicating changes in work conditions such as that a rush is coming and one will need to work faster to keep up.

  • Too bad (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Say what you will about machines taking jobs, I'd rather have a machine make my food than a human. On more than one instance I've been at a fast food place, looked back in the food prep area, and saw someone give their nose a good scratch-pick in between putting on the lettuce and tomato. I'm not saying there's any malicious intent or anything, just that people are gross, particularly when they're rushed and not paid enough to care (or simply don't take cleanliness into much consideration themselves, whic

    • Re:Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:18PM (#56236461)

      "I'd rather have a machine make my food than a human. "

      You know those odd horror stories about a dead rodent found in a can of tomatoes or jar of pickles. Yeah, that's how good the machines are. Admittedly that's the worst case scenario; but for every dead rat in a can or jar, there's 10 generations of rats living in and around those machines, getting into the food, taking shits, and otherwise living their lives out.

      As for the robots in a fast food joint; same thing. I worked fast food as a kid; a good team would tear down, strip, and sanitize the milkshake machine, every gasket, and o-ring. A lazy cleaning crew might it rinse out, but not do a complete tear down, and leave all the rings and gaskets in place. And you'll get nasty residue and build up in all those little nooks and crannies.

      The milkshake machine is a 'robot' and it can get gross fast. A lazy graveyard cleaning crew might not get caught for a month... until a health inspector opens it up and notices the brown crust growing around the drive shaft. Or a customer completes about some 'gross' sludge from finally broke off and game out in their serving.

      "machines can't some soon enough as far as I'm concerned."

      Very few human staff will tolerate a rat or a roach on the table while they're preparing your food. A rat can nibble on the bun, with roaches hanging out in the lettuce while a machine puts your burger together.

      • You are however, ignoring the potential advantages that a human-free environment can provide. You can make sure that an environment is very sanitary if you regularly flood it with high levels of UV that human workers wouldn't care for.

        • You can make sure that an environment is very sanitary if you regularly flood it with high levels of UV that human workers wouldn't care for.

          Added bonus: No vampires in the kitchen.

      • The milkshake machine is a 'robot' and it can get gross fast. A lazy graveyard cleaning crew might not get caught for a month...

        Who the hell is making milkshakes in a graveyard?

        ... until a health inspector opens it up and notices the brown crust growing around the drive shaft. Or a customer complains about some 'gross' sludge from finally broke off and game out in their serving.

        Note to self: Get buried in a different graveyard.

      • Yeah, because there is no way that we'll invent cleaning robots. No. Way.

      • It depends on how seriously the company takes consistency and sanitation when they order the robots they want. Most food assembly lines use cameras to check items for faults, and they can do so much more reliably than people, let alone dozens of times faster. Yes, employees still tear down and clean the machines, but if a weird spot is detected on a pizza crust or that potato chip is burnt or too small, a quick blast of air will shoo it off the belt.

        Eventually, I expect fast food robots to do the same. P

      • You know those odd horror stories about a dead rodent found in a can of tomatoes or jar of pickles. Yeah, that's how good the machines are.

        I used to work at a large biscuit (cookie for the Americans) factory. We had a moth fly in and land on the dough during the kneading and forming section right before the oven. The guy just looked at it, turned to me and said QC will catch it. 20min later I had to deliver something to packing and noticed the QC guy wasn't even there that day and they just ran the line without him.

        I also worked at a Pizza Hut. The pasta cooker in the back of the restaurant got cleaned every day by just wiping over the straine

        • Ahh forgot to mention: The biscuit line was upgraded 2 years after I left. I went through for a tour, and the QC department has installed a camera based reject system which monitors the colour and consistency of what comes out of the oven. It doesn't break for lunch, it doesn't chat to other employees, and it doesn't fall asleep in its chair either. It was a combined program with a local university and the university press credited it with a ~70% reduction in customer complaints.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          Oh, i agree people are inconsistent. I don't dispute for a second any of the horror stories out there about shit work done by people.

          But its a mistake to think simply putting robots in is the solution. Robots are terrific at doing exactly what they're told for days on end, and lousy at anything else. Humans... aren't great at doing exactly same thing over and over again, and are apt to get lazy. But they can deal with the things the machines can't deal with.

          Your pasta maker example, for example... nobody ev

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        It all depends on how advanced automation you want to build. The simplest form is purely mechanical operation, no input or output validation and no self-integrity checks. This is how power tools work, push the button and the drill starts drilling. From there you can add sensors, like a thermostat adjusts the output relative to an input. You can add self-integrity checks like a photocopier complaining about a paper jam. Any coin-operated machine validates that what you put in is actually coins. For an automa

  • But does it like dolphins? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "If I told you there were two guys, one named Flippy, and one named Hambone, and I asked you which one liked dophins the most, you'd probably say Flippy, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong, because it's Hambone." -- Jack Handy

  • How hard can it be? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @06:49PM (#56236311) Homepage

    Really, How hard can it be to come up with a burger flipping robot? I'm actually sitting here thinking of a design that cooks the patty on both sides at the same time. No need to flip. I think a guy name Foreman was shilling a grill like it on tv the other night.

    • McDonald's uses (or used to use?) "clamshell" grills that cooked both sides at the same time, and this was even before George Foreman.

    • It's called a "George Foreman Grill". You should probably just stay home and make your own burgers, you'll get better quality ingredients that way anyway.

    • Re:How hard can it be? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Nkwe ( 604125 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:03PM (#56236665)

      Really, How hard can it be to come up with a burger flipping robot?

      Setting aside for a moment the humor aspect of the parent, I think the non-sarcastic answer to this question is actually pretty interesting. If the question is really "How hard is it to automatically cook a hamburger patty?", the answer is that it's pretty easy if you get to design the whole machine in and the environment that it runs in. If you can use a wire conveyor belt and heating elements on both sides similar to how the sandwich toasters at Quizno's and Potbelly and add some stuff for grease management, you are probably set. Even if it turns out that you really need to heat from the bottom and let the patty sit in the grease, you could build something similar to how an automated tortilla cooker works. But on the other hand, if your requirement is to build a device that must operate in conjunction with an existing restaurant grill, without modifying the grill itself, and the device needs to take no more space than would a human standing in front of the grill, and this device has to safely operate around other human restaurant workers amidst the chaos of motion and activity that occurs in a small kitchen, and the device has to be as productive as a human would, the task is pretty complex and hard.

      • I think that there is a very human perception issue here as well. If you're just running a frozen patty through a conveyor, that feels like a factory. If there's a robot emulating a human, that feels much closer to "handmade". It doesn't matter that it's just a less effective way to cook the burger, most humans are going to feel like the human-mimicking activity produces a higher quality burger.

      • The robot will probably cost more than the grill; so it's not a problem that the existing grill goes.

      • I've noticed that every pizza parlor I go to never uses a conventional oven. They use a conveyor belt that runs at just the right speed. Really, they would just need to get robots to stretch the dough and put on the toppings -- the cooking is already down pat.

        Professional chefs cook hamburger patties in an oven, not on a grill. As you said, a patty toaster oven makes a lot more sense, and would make it easier to produce items to order, eliminating the problem of having to store burgers under a hot lamp.

        M

      • This is basically the machine that places like Burger King and Dairy Queen were using back in the 80s and 90s. I assume that something similar is still used today, but maybe that's changed.

        Nobody was flipping burgers back then, you just put a frozen patty in the machine at one end, and it came out done on the other. Have the patty roll over an open flame at some point in the trip and you get your "flame broiled" part.

  • Nothingburger (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @06:57PM (#56236373) Journal

    after a single day of working as a cook at a Caliburger location in Pasadena this week, Flippy the burger-flipping robot has stopped flipping.

    Just so you all know, Caliburger is a shit place. It's an overpriced version of In and Out. When we moved to California, we stopped at the Caliburger in Bakersfield and the fries are frozen like McDonalds and the burgers are tiny and mushy. We had driven in from the Mojave and we were hungry and it was really a disappointment.

    There are much better burger places around here.

    • Frozen fries are better. You get a better texture inside if you freeze first. What sucks about McDonalds fries is that they're too thin and they're often limp because they rush it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "You get a better texture inside if you freeze first."

        WRONG. You get a better texture inside if you parboil first. Freezing freshly-cut potatoes does exactly jack and shit to the product except turn it to mush.

        • https://aht.seriouseats.com/20... [seriouseats.com]

          Getting Inside the Fluffy Interior

          Now that I'd perfected the crust, the final issue to deal with was that of the interior. One last question remained: how to maximize the flavor of the interior. In order to stay fluffy and not gummy, a lot of the interior moisture needs to be expelled in the cooking process, so my goal should be to make this evaporation as easy as possible. I figure that so far, by cooking it all the way to boiling point, I'm doing pretty much the right thing--the more cooked the potatoes are, the more the cell structure breaks down, and the easier it is for water to be expelled. To confirm this, I cooked three batches of potatoes, starting each in a pot of cold, vinegared water, and bringing them up to various final temperature (170 degree F, 185 degree F, and 212 degree F) before draining and double-frying them. Not surprisingly, the boiled potatoes had the best internal structure. Luckily, they were the easiest to make as well.

          But was there anything more I could do? I thought back to those McDonald's fries and realized a vital step that I had neglected to test: freezing. Every batch of McDonald's fries is frozen before being shipped out to the stores. I always figured this step was for purely economic reasons, but perhaps there was more to it?

          I tried freezing half a batch of fries before frying them and tasted them side-by-side against the other half.

          The improvement was undeniable. The frozen fries had a distinctly fluffier interior, while the unfrozen ones were still ever-so-slightly gummy. It makes perfect sense. Freezing the potatoes causes their moisture to convert to ice, forming sharp, jagged crystals. These crystals damage the cell structure of the potato, making it easier for them to be released once they are heated and convert to steam. The best part? Because freezing actually improves them, I can do the initial blanching and frying steps in large batches, freeze them, and have a constant supply of ready-to-fry potatoes right in my freezer just like Ronald himself!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Khyber ( 864651 )

            He boiled in vinegared water - instant failure. Period.

            I speak as someone with over two decades of professional culinary experience.

          • This is the same guide I followed in my own quest for a good homemade french fry. After many attempts following other tips (par boiling, double or triple frying, adding corn starch), I found this guide, tried it, and bam. Crispy (fairly), fresh, delicious french fries WITH a perfect texture inside.

            I par boil and freeze now, sometimes double frying but sometimes not. The only remaining issue I have is the fact that modern home-use deep fryers are all limited to relatively low temperatures and capacities.

        • WRONG.

          I both par boil AND freeze. Par boiling is to make it easier to crisp up the outside and removes excess starch (much better than an ice bath), but it isn't strictly necessary. You can also oven bake at high temperatures after (which makes it easier if you're cooking multiple batches) or double fry (which takes forever for a decent sized batch in a home fryers as you have to reheat the oil). It doesn't do shit for the inside. Par boiling alone will give you a softer inside, but it will be rubbery a

    • If you have a wild side and want to live dangerously, try committing to some shitty burger tourism, I recommend the Hermitage TN Jack in the Box. It will really leave you asking, "am I going to get food poisoning from eating this?"

      A1 in awfulness, best worst service, glad I didn't get sick, will never eat there again! F++++++

  • Clippy (Score:5, Funny)

    by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @07:18PM (#56236463)
    "I see you're trying to flip a burger, would you like help with that?"

  • RTFM (Score:2)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 )

    You'd think the maximum output per minute would have been detailed in the user manual, but it was probably written up as YMMV based on network conditions. I wonder if Flippy requires a direct connection to the net and then could be hacked to serve raw burgers or burn them up and start a fire.

  • Flippy's too limited (Score:3)

    by Ken_g6 ( 775014 ) on Friday March 09, 2018 @08:23PM (#56236743)

    It's designed to work with existing appliances and workers. They should just get a machine to do the whole burger, like this [neontommy.com].

  • I think Burger King already has a working burger cooking robot. It's called a charbroiler.
  • Flippy could have a camera and learn the other worker's routines

    If necessary, s/he could get Alexa's voice (without the cackling laugh)

  • Seriously.

    As soon as you add mechanical complexity then you're adding maintenance costs.

    If the worker being replaced is paid a low wage, the cost:benefit is low. The low-hanging fruit for automation are more-or-less intellectual but repetitive tasks with higher pay rates and that's been going on for 40 years (when was the last time you saw a room full of accounts ledger clerks scratching away?)

    The more likely targets for unemployment are accountants, junior lawyers and suchlike. The investment to do so is l

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