Robots could be great, for example, to help make cars.
“Robots are basically pre-programmed to repeat the same actions over and over again,” says David Held, a robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon University and one of a team of pizza makers.
Making pizza, however, has its challenges. For example, the dough is spongy, with a shape that can change in many ways. It is much easier to program a robot if the object it has to manipulate has a solid shape.
Additionally, making pizza requires many steps — such as rolling, cutting, and gathering — and several tools, including a rolling pin, knife, and spatula. Some companies have developed robotic systems capable of making pizza using specialized equipment for each step, but using a standard robot arm and common tools to handle all functions is trickier. In what order should the steps be done? Which utensil to choose and when? “If you have to do a kitchen task, you have to think on many levels,” says Held.
Once people get the hang of it, “we don’t even have to consciously think about how we’re doing it – it kind of happens.” But robots can’t really “figure out what to do on their own”.
To start, the team used a computer simulation to examine how a robot could lift, flatten, gather, move and cut virtual dough. The method involved two levels of robotic reasoning: one that analyzed how it should approach the overall task, and another that analyzed how it should move its claws to perform each action. The result was significantly better than with the usual programming techniques.
However, don’t expect to see a robot pizza maker in your school cafeteria anytime soon. Held and a few other researchers took what they learned from the simulation and used it to program a robot that already exists, called Sawyer. They then asked Sawyer to try rolling real pizza dough into a small circle, which he wasn’t quite successful with.
“We got a little closer to the correct circular shape compared to previous methods,” says Held. “But there is still a lot of room for improvement.”
For now, people will continue to make pizza the old-fashioned way: with their own hands. Still, a pizza-making robot is a good goal. At a seniors’ facility, for example, Held says staff could potentially spend less time in the kitchen and more time interacting with residents. And if a robot could handle squishy dough, it could also work with other objects that can change shape, like laundry.
“You can imagine robots helping out in hospitals, or robots cleaning up toys in day care centers,” Held says. “The overall goal is to eventually have robot assistants that can help with any task.”
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