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Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by exikyut on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:02AM (#30636413)
> 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.

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by wirthjason on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:46AM (#30636715)
This is the best I could find. Sadly there’s no video clip.

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

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by numpad0 on Friday March 11, 2022 @03:22PM (#30645519)
Found a frozen food factory tour reel

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

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by p_l on Friday March 11, 2022 @02:42AM (#30637342)
Look for material from china - I've seen videos where something like 90% of ingredient-to-table pipeline was robotic, including the waiter
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by eru on Friday March 11, 2022 @02:50AM (#30637390)
Robotic waiter is easy and already implemented, just look at conveyor belt sushi or iPad ordering.
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by p_l on Friday March 11, 2022 @02:58AM (#30637448)
I meant robotic pipeline that starts at electronic ordering, mostly robotic cooking, and delivery by free-driving delivery robot on the restaurant floor.
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by eru on Friday March 11, 2022 @11:04AM (#30641545)
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.
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by p_l on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:44PM (#30643260)
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
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by eru on Friday March 11, 2022 @10:22PM (#30648724)
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.)

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by p_l on Saturday March 12, 2022 @07:03AM (#30650804)
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)
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by eru on Sunday March 13, 2022 @12:07AM (#30658167)
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.

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by kooshball on Friday March 11, 2022 @03:04AM (#30637492)
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.

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by wirthjason on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:03PM (#30642556)
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.
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by kooshball on Friday March 11, 2022 @03:56PM (#30645906)
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
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by 1vonzhang on Friday March 11, 2022 @05:09AM (#30638195)
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.
Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by kalimanzaro on Friday March 11, 2022 @12:04PM (#30642574)
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

Re:The magic of the Japanese convenience store sandwich by kernelbugs on Friday March 11, 2022 @09:28AM (#30640321)
It's Singapore, as mentioned in the description (and the prices are quoted in SGD).