Making French fries sucks. This robot does it for US$3 an hour with no breaks

Flippy the robot demonstrating its ability to man a fry station at Miso Robotics in Pasadena, California. — Los AngelesTimes/TNS

In a test kitchen in a corner building in downtown Pasadena, Flippy the robot grabbed a fryer basket full of chicken fingers, plunged it into hot oil – its sensors told it exactly how hot – then lifted, drained and dumped maximally tender tenders into a waiting hopper.

A few feet away, another Flippy eyed a beef patty sizzling on a griddle. With its camera eyes feeding pixels to a machine vision brain, it waited until the beef hit the right shade of brown, then smoothly slipped its spatula hand under the burger and plopped it on a tray.