Hovering over a styrofoam cup of steaming hot noodles, trying not to burn your tongue is a staple dinner routine for many students and aspiring entrepreneurs. But, when you’re busy trying to solve the mysteries of the spacetime continuum, or knee deep in research books, who really has time to make the perfect cup of noodles? Too bad you didn’t have these robots slaving away for you, at the time. Think of all the extra mental energy that could have gone into your Quantum Mechanics studies? Or the marketing campaign you might have created for your latest invention, the Pet Boulder. These robots could have changed everything.
And that’s what they’re doing at Fuamen, a noodle restaurant in Japan. Here, customers are able to enjoy a meal of ramen noodles that are completely prepared by automated robots. The robots even go so far as putting the noodles in a bowl and dressing up each dish with all of the necessary accoutrement. So, what are the benefits of a robot chef? Well, aside from the sheer novelty of the whole thing, there’s also the idea that each bowl of noodles will be prepared exactly the same way, every single time. Not to mention, in their downtime, these robots spin plates and fight with knives. A robot chef and an entertainer? Now, that I’d pay to see.
Due to the fact that the robots were so expensive to develop, Fuamen has yet to break into the black, but we admire their innovative approach to automation. While building a robot that cooks and does the dishes is not simple task, giving it some personality, so that it dances in the kitchen between sword fights, has turned a mechanical feat into a sought-after tourist attraction. In the video below, you’ll see diners taking pictures of the robots, while they enjoy their meal. The only question left is, will these robots blush when someone asks to kiss the cook?
