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Comment by exikyut | Hacker News Reader

> I learned that 7-11’s fried rice is made using real woks with an elaborate setup of robotic arms to toss the rice with the wok and spatula.

I would not mind seeing how that setup is implemented!

The vast majority of the odd robotic cooking contraptions I've seen on YouTube have almost always been bespoke once-offs (eg, someone's homemade project). Something that actually scales and is cost-effective would very likely be constructed very differently, and likely genuinely interesting and insightful to observe.

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This is the best I could find. Sadly there’s no video clip.

https://dogatch.jp/news/tbs/tbstopics_69799/detail/

Found a frozen food factory tour reel

https://youtube.com/watch?v=8N8BCD3q_M0

Look for material from china - I've seen videos where something like 90% of ingredient-to-table pipeline was robotic, including the waiter

Robotic waiter is easy and already implemented, just look at conveyor belt sushi or iPad ordering.

I meant robotic pipeline that starts at electronic ordering, mostly robotic cooking, and delivery by free-driving delivery robot on the restaurant floor.

OK, makes some sense. Though getting a free-driving delivery robot instead of a conveyor belt sounds a bit like using humanoid robot to wash dishes instead of a dishwasher.

Free-driving delivery robot makes sense when the restaurant has "classic" seating, including with no adjacent walls, and portion sizes that would make conveyor belt quite wide

Maybe. Though this reminds me of people trying to design a horseless carriage:

It's totally doable with modern technology, but in all honesty, modern cars work better.

(Off-topic: now that I think about it, it would be fun to see a 'self-driving carriage'. Ie you keep the horses, but replace the coachman with technology.)

FWIW, conveyor (or just any other static logistical mover) vs independently driving robots (or even crewed systems) is a valid spectrum that you apply in both internal factory logistics (from workers driving, through automatic robots, to conveyors and internal trains) and nation-wide systems (lorry vs. train, pretty much)

Yes, it's a valid spectrum. Definitely!

About your other example: I would expect self-driving lorries in a few decades to look very different from current human-driven lorries.

it looks something like this

https://youtu.be/xn4hBelQLlI

I've seen videos where it's much larger scale restaurant. the chefs are basically just responsible for filling those bowls and they man multiple stations. there are also versions with a wok.

That machine is cool but 7-11’s process was nothing like that. That machine is for individual servings at a restaurant. The one 7-11 used was more industrialized and made to produce pre-packaged food to be served frozen then heated up at home.

sorry i wasn't implying this is what the 7-11 looks like. just sharing an example i can find of industrial level cooking automation

You can tell from the simplified Chinese that this is owned by Chinese i.s.o. Japanese, which is just another great example of the above mentioned idea of "unique" Japanese.

The signage may be Chinese but the locale is Singapore. That said, 80% of the "uniquely Japanese" things mentioned in the sister article are found in any East Asian city with a significant Japanese presence.

Eg: vending machines for pet cacti

It's Singapore, as mentioned in the description (and the prices are quoted in SGD).

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