Robots Make Popcorn and Sandwiches
Posted on December 16, 2011
Two PR2 robots, James and Rosie, made sandwiches and popcorn at the Technical University of Munich. The robot making the sandwich (Rosie) takes a couple tries to get the bread in the toaster and the mayo is not spread evenly on the bread, but it does look like like a good sandwich. The robot making the popcorn (James) does a good job of getting nearly all of the popped popcorn into a bowl. The IEEE's Automaton blog says the robots were not pre-programmed to do each and every little step. They have to figure out some of the steps, movements and actions themselves, which makes their performance even more impressive. Take a look:
There is a longer (15 minute) version of the robots preparing popcorn and sandwiches here. The longer video explains each step the robot has to take in order to prepare the food.