Robots learned how to cook ramen, change their color and size
Welcome to iCover Blog ! Exciting news from the world of robotics comes almost daily, and you are sometimes amazed at how quickly and successfully a person prepares for himself a replacement in various areas of contact with the surrounding reality. Already now, our mechanical assistants save us from many unnecessary problems, allowing us to forget about routine and labor-intensive operations, expanding the boundaries of our capabilities to new, yesterday, inaccessible limits.
About what new and interesting happened in this amazing world a few days earlier we will tell in this article.
The owners of the popular Chinese restaurant Toyako Ramen came to the conclusion that they could get ahead of the competition and significantly increase the income of the institution if the branded ramen (Japanese 拉 麺 、 柳 麺 ra: maine) for the visitors instead of cooks-experts on oriental cuisine will prepare robots. 90 seconds - exactly so much takes two robots Koya and Kona to cook ramen - a signature Japanese dish with wheat noodles. Of course, all the necessary ingredients and kitchen accessories should be available and located in their places.
The development of a pair of robotic “masters of the culinary genre” cost the owner of Toyako Ramen 1 million yuan or 150 thousand dollars - an amount equivalent to the salary of two cooks paid for 6 years. Despite the fact that the cost of a bowl of ramen is 58 yuan, which is twice the cost of a similar portion of dishes in most restaurants in the city, the influx of visitors who want to taste Koya and Kona cooking and appreciate their art has increased markedly.
This is only the first step, a moment reflecting the emergence of a new trend. In the near future, the robots involved in the food service industry will be assigned one of the key roles - the owner of the Toyako Ramen restaurant is sure, without denying the fact that the secrets of some dishes of oriental cuisine passed down from generation to generation were and will remain the property of a professional chef-man and will be in demand while China stands.
A group of engineers from Wuhan University of China has developed a robot that can change its color depending on the color scheme of its environment. Details of the work done are outlined in ACS Nano. A unique chameleon robot is made in the form of a cat, whose body elements are printed on a 3D printer. Each of the elements of which the visible surface of the robot body is composed of an integrated sensor and a miniature plasmon “display” - a small glass plate with a recess in diameter of 50 Nm. The inner gilded surface of the recesses is covered with an electrolytic gel with silver ions.
When each such “pixel” interacts with the incident light, a thin upper layer of gold emits plasmons and acquires a reddish hue. When voltage is applied to the electrolytic gel, silver ions come in contact with gold, which is accompanied by a visual change in hue, and a change in the magnitude of the applied voltage allows the visible color to be varied. The absence or reset of voltage to zero leads to the leveling of the described effect. The sensors used in the experiment to recognize the background color gamut and the magnitude of the voltage required to supply voltage reacted to three basic colors (see video) - blue, green and red. At the same time, the developed technology does not impose any restrictions on the creation of more complex structures with more advanced sensors that quickly and accurately respond to any changes in the background color gamut.
Detailed results of the experiment are described on the pages of the online magazine ASC Nano. A summary report is available at newscientist.com .
Already in the near future, engineers say, the developed camouflage technology can be improved and will allow you to instantly mimic military camouflage under the surrounding background or tools that allow you to hide any military equipment using the same principle.
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have developed a robotic arm that has an amazing ability to not only tolerate multiple compressive loads, but also to move in this state in difficult passages of confined spaces. In details, the development is published in the PNAS journal (pdf-file link) with a brief summary can be found on the pages of the university website .
Researchers were inspired to create a robotaracana by his living prototypes from the Periplaneta americana family. After conducting many experiments on specially designed test benches, scientists came to the conclusion that insects are able to withstand a load of 900 (!) Times their own weight. At the same time, which is typical, cockroaches did not lose their ability to move fast enough even when their body was pressed 3-4 times in comparison with their natural state, and the ability to use their legs in accordance with their anatomical features was extremely difficult.
As it turned out, efficient movement in such a constrained state was made possible thanks to sensitive hairs on the lower leg, working in the “normal mode” as the organ of touch. In such conditions, excessive friction occurs between the legs and the floor, while between the carapace and the surface pressing on top it is much smaller.
CRAM and a cockroach on the deformation bench
Transferring the described principle to the construction of a robotarakan, researchers were able to create a deformable CRAM robot. Legs of a specific shape are fixed along the edges of the elastic shell. When the exoskeleton is deformed, the legs rest on the lower surface with their other part, thus preserving the possibility of movement.
CRAM Robotarakan is able to withstand loads of up to one kilogram, which is 20 times its own weight. The robot retains the ability to move when being compressed almost twice - from 75 to 35 millimeters. According to researchers, in the future robots with similar capabilities will be in demand as ideal scouts in natural disasters, when it is necessary to penetrate gaps much smaller than the size of their hull.
Dear readers, we are always happy to meet and wait for you on the pages of our blog. We are ready to continue to share with you the latest news, review materials and other publications, and will try to do our best to make the time spent with us useful for you. And, of course, do not forget to subscribe to our columns . Our other articles and events
About what new and interesting happened in this amazing world a few days earlier we will tell in this article.
Chinese robo chef cook delicious ramen in 90 seconds
The owners of the popular Chinese restaurant Toyako Ramen came to the conclusion that they could get ahead of the competition and significantly increase the income of the institution if the branded ramen (Japanese 拉 麺 、 柳 麺 ra: maine) for the visitors instead of cooks-experts on oriental cuisine will prepare robots. 90 seconds - exactly so much takes two robots Koya and Kona to cook ramen - a signature Japanese dish with wheat noodles. Of course, all the necessary ingredients and kitchen accessories should be available and located in their places.
The development of a pair of robotic “masters of the culinary genre” cost the owner of Toyako Ramen 1 million yuan or 150 thousand dollars - an amount equivalent to the salary of two cooks paid for 6 years. Despite the fact that the cost of a bowl of ramen is 58 yuan, which is twice the cost of a similar portion of dishes in most restaurants in the city, the influx of visitors who want to taste Koya and Kona cooking and appreciate their art has increased markedly.
This is only the first step, a moment reflecting the emergence of a new trend. In the near future, the robots involved in the food service industry will be assigned one of the key roles - the owner of the Toyako Ramen restaurant is sure, without denying the fact that the secrets of some dishes of oriental cuisine passed down from generation to generation were and will remain the property of a professional chef-man and will be in demand while China stands.
Robocot changes the color of the “coat” depending on the environment
A group of engineers from Wuhan University of China has developed a robot that can change its color depending on the color scheme of its environment. Details of the work done are outlined in ACS Nano. A unique chameleon robot is made in the form of a cat, whose body elements are printed on a 3D printer. Each of the elements of which the visible surface of the robot body is composed of an integrated sensor and a miniature plasmon “display” - a small glass plate with a recess in diameter of 50 Nm. The inner gilded surface of the recesses is covered with an electrolytic gel with silver ions.
When each such “pixel” interacts with the incident light, a thin upper layer of gold emits plasmons and acquires a reddish hue. When voltage is applied to the electrolytic gel, silver ions come in contact with gold, which is accompanied by a visual change in hue, and a change in the magnitude of the applied voltage allows the visible color to be varied. The absence or reset of voltage to zero leads to the leveling of the described effect. The sensors used in the experiment to recognize the background color gamut and the magnitude of the voltage required to supply voltage reacted to three basic colors (see video) - blue, green and red. At the same time, the developed technology does not impose any restrictions on the creation of more complex structures with more advanced sensors that quickly and accurately respond to any changes in the background color gamut.
Detailed results of the experiment are described on the pages of the online magazine ASC Nano. A summary report is available at newscientist.com .
Already in the near future, engineers say, the developed camouflage technology can be improved and will allow you to instantly mimic military camouflage under the surrounding background or tools that allow you to hide any military equipment using the same principle.
Why did you need to create a robotaracana?
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have developed a robotic arm that has an amazing ability to not only tolerate multiple compressive loads, but also to move in this state in difficult passages of confined spaces. In details, the development is published in the PNAS journal (pdf-file link) with a brief summary can be found on the pages of the university website .
Researchers were inspired to create a robotaracana by his living prototypes from the Periplaneta americana family. After conducting many experiments on specially designed test benches, scientists came to the conclusion that insects are able to withstand a load of 900 (!) Times their own weight. At the same time, which is typical, cockroaches did not lose their ability to move fast enough even when their body was pressed 3-4 times in comparison with their natural state, and the ability to use their legs in accordance with their anatomical features was extremely difficult.
As it turned out, efficient movement in such a constrained state was made possible thanks to sensitive hairs on the lower leg, working in the “normal mode” as the organ of touch. In such conditions, excessive friction occurs between the legs and the floor, while between the carapace and the surface pressing on top it is much smaller.
CRAM and a cockroach on the deformation bench
Transferring the described principle to the construction of a robotarakan, researchers were able to create a deformable CRAM robot. Legs of a specific shape are fixed along the edges of the elastic shell. When the exoskeleton is deformed, the legs rest on the lower surface with their other part, thus preserving the possibility of movement.
CRAM Robotarakan is able to withstand loads of up to one kilogram, which is 20 times its own weight. The robot retains the ability to move when being compressed almost twice - from 75 to 35 millimeters. According to researchers, in the future robots with similar capabilities will be in demand as ideal scouts in natural disasters, when it is necessary to penetrate gaps much smaller than the size of their hull.
Dear readers, we are always happy to meet and wait for you on the pages of our blog. We are ready to continue to share with you the latest news, review materials and other publications, and will try to do our best to make the time spent with us useful for you. And, of course, do not forget to subscribe to our columns . Our other articles and events