Speaker 1: A burger flipping robot. I'm Rich Dimiro. This is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech Daily. Recently I went to Cali Berger in Pasadena,
Speaker 1: California to check out a brand new burger flipping robot
Speaker 1: named Flippy. We got to see this thing in action,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, this could be the future
Speaker 1: for fast food restaurants. So today is the first day
Speaker 1: for Flippy on the job, but we were there for
Speaker 1: a preview event where it grilled up some hamburgers for us.
Speaker 1: So how does it work? All Right, So a coworker
Speaker 1: puts the raw patties on the grill and then the
Speaker 1: robot goes to work, so it senses when these things
Speaker 1: need to be flipped and when they need to be
Speaker 1: taken off the grill. The company says it can use
Speaker 1: thermal imaging, three D and camera vision to do all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and of course there's a little dose of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence thrown in. So the more that this robot
Speaker 1: cooks burger's, the more it learns how to do that better.
Speaker 1: The robot was created by a company called Miso Robotics,
Speaker 1: also out of Pasadena. It's actually a obsidiary of the
Speaker 1: same company, Cali Group that owns Cali Berger, and if
Speaker 1: you know anything about Cali Burger, I think it seems
Speaker 1: a little similar to another place called in and Out Burger.
Speaker 1: Apparently a lot of other people think the same thing.
Speaker 1: I was in Hong Kong. I saw one of these
Speaker 1: Cali Burger locations and it looks a lot like in
Speaker 1: an out Burger. But anyway, you can do some searching
Speaker 1: on Google and apparently other people think the same. But
Speaker 1: I digress. So we did watch this flippy make the burgers.
Speaker 1: It took them off the grill. It wasn't perfect and
Speaker 1: it's not super fast. But again, this is the first
Speaker 1: iteration of this thing. It's gonna get better as time
Speaker 1: goes on. It takes a lot of programming to do this.
Speaker 1: In fact, we saw it mess up just a little bit.
Speaker 1: The first batch of burgers had to be thrown out
Speaker 1: for some reason. They didn't really tell us why. But
Speaker 1: the second batch did come out okay. In fact, we
Speaker 1: ate them. Mine was delicious. I mean the thing basically
Speaker 1: flips the burger, then it takes it off the grill,
Speaker 1: puts it on a tray for a human to kind
Speaker 1: of finish with all the toppings and the bun and everything.
Speaker 1: Tasted fresh. The burger tasted good. It was cooked well
Speaker 1: and or I should say not well done. It was
Speaker 1: just cooked very good. So it tasted really nice. So
Speaker 1: why is Cali Berger doing this Well, they want to
Speaker 1: cut down on training costs. They say that that grill
Speaker 1: cook job is not very desirable. People start it and
Speaker 1: then they realize, I don't really like this job, and
Speaker 1: so they want to move on to something else. And
Speaker 1: this will cut down on training costs because if you
Speaker 1: have a robot doing this day in day out, they
Speaker 1: don't have to think about another human doing it every
Speaker 1: single day, or a new human every single day. But
Speaker 1: these robots are not cheap. They cost sixty thousand dollars minimum.
Speaker 1: And this is the first one. So if you want
Speaker 1: to see this thing in action, you can check it
Speaker 1: out at the Cali Burger in Pasadena. It is sort
Speaker 1: of in the front of the house. They don't have
Speaker 1: it hidden in the back of the kitchen because people
Speaker 1: want to see this thing. It's kind of neat to
Speaker 1: see Flippy in action. But they say they are going
Speaker 1: to expand it into other restaurants. They do have a
Speaker 1: bunch of them worldwide. This Cali Burger chain has restaurants
Speaker 1: all over the world. I don't think the human workers
Speaker 1: are going away anytime soon, but like the company said,
Speaker 1: they're definitely a nice addition to the human workers, so
Speaker 1: basically think of them as co workers miso robotics that
Speaker 1: it's kind of that third hand in the kitchen. So
Speaker 1: there you have it. Flippy now cooking at the Caliberger
Speaker 1: in Pasadena, California. If you want to see a video
Speaker 1: on it, just go to my Facebook page Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash rich on tech. You can watch Flippy in
Speaker 1: action from start to finish. And if you enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do is rate and review
Speaker 1: it in the podcasts app on your iPhone. So many
Speaker 1: of you have done that. I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That's how Apple shows it to more people, so we
Speaker 1: can get this discovered by a lot more folks. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. I'm rich damiro rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot Tv is a link to go to for more information.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you next time.