Science Burger-flipping robot begins first shift

Source with video.

Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, has begun work at a restaurant in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

It is the first of dozens of locations for the system, which is destined to replace human fast-food workers.

The BBC's North America technology reporter Dave Lee saw it in action.

It was just a matter of time. If anything, I don't know what's stopping fast food restaurants to fully automate their food cooking process, top to bottom.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

When I said "my" flat bed, I didn't actually mean my flat bed. I don't drive a truck. I played with hoses on a FD once and learned a lot about truck driving from that job from working plenty of scenes. I ran more than one scene of a flatbedder that didn't secure his load worth a shit and dumped steel tubing/7ft wide concrete rolls/tarps/hay all over the interstate. And invariably some exceptional individual would wind up hitting said 7ft wide concrete roll going 75MPH five minutes later. Or your stereotypical Swift/Schneider driver smacking the cable barrier because they fell asleep on the highway and didn't make the turn.

Now I work in insurance and I deal with them in a different manner. Usually because my dumbass customer ran into one.

I totally agree that in the beginning we will see a semi-automated setup, at least in HAZMAT/Flatbed/Vehicle Transport. Eventually somebody has got to develop a reliable automated tarping/strapping system that doesn't require human intervention. I honestly believe that because having a driver do it right now is the cheapest option that there's been no real enterprising with that. Why buy an expensive tarping system when you can just pay a driver to do it? I think it's just a matter of time once automated trucks are viable that other areas won't follow suit.

Oh, so you don't actually know the regs. Well, here's the deal. Those flatbedders that you saw who scattered their shit all over everywhere. They ignored the regs. Regs say every two hours you stop and inspect and tighten your load. People are lazy and incompetent and likely those guys got shitcanned for doing it. But, unlike the self-driving truck automation that people are sure will work because of course it will. Those same people don't think about the straps and loading systems while they are eleven different kinds of up-their-own-ass talking about this stuff. It's too deep for them. It's too technical. The best they can manage is "Truck driver drives truck. Robot drives truck. Truck driver now no-have job. This makes them sad." It doesn't work like that.

Think about a load of steel going over the rockies on I-70 in December. Do you think an automatic adjuster is going to work then? Or will it likely be frozen cock-stiff with ice and need to be chiseled out to work properly. That's the kind of shit where you need an operator to handle (and also put on chains). OTR driving isn't going away because putting somebody, even if they are a bit lazy, is likely to be more reliable than any automated system they can devise. That's one, just one, example of many little things that professional drivers do. I'd personally rate it at driving being only about 1/3rd of the job. At most. Automated systems complex enough to handle a majority of the tasks are beyond what we expect billion-dollar airliners to handle.

If it helps owner-operators and smaller companies take off, I'm game for that, too. All the accidents I ever ran were the major "newbie" carriers. I'm sure I ran accidents with owner-operators at fault, but Werner, Schneider, and Swift stand out.

You forgot C.R. England. Those guys are garbage too. But the solution there isn't really automation. It's the regs and how the big fleets and the teamsters have joined up to fuck independents out of the industry. All under the guise of "safety". I could go on a whole rant here about how they are purposefully leveraging their continental presence by lobbying for federal regulation to increase the burden on small carriers to drive them out with "safety" compliance overhead. They have been for 20+ years and that is why we have seen the decrease in driver quality. Their drivers are just steering wheel holders who really only do 1/3rd of the work. They shouldn't be driving truck. Don't feel sorry for them if a robot takes their job or, more importantly, when some fuckhead comes at you pushing for more regs for "safety". There's a much bigger game being played here.