Video: Salami-sorting robot

Kottke points us to this fun video of a giant machine that sorts salami. Something about the way the salami wiggles on the conveyer belt and the way the robot arms dance as they pick the salami sticks up is really mesmerizing.

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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Lobster

Poor robots. They’re going to be totally useless once the Breathatarians over in the “old guy who doesn’t eat” thread prove that you can live on goddess-power alone.
Anonymous

I’m watching the video on mute with the Allman Brothers’ “Dimples” playing over it. It’s magically delicious. :)
Anonymous

Offal with Salt is not Salami!
designian

As cool as that is – and it is very cool…. doesn’t it seem like the least efficient method of gathering up four little salami?
Ohhhsnap

That is clearly pepperoni and not salami.
mrjohnso

Sorting salami is a delicate business.
Anonymous

This reminded me of another ABB video. This one is of a pancake stacking robot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg8YYuLLoM0

It makes me wonder why I don’t have a robot to clean my bathroom.
Anonymous

Koyaanisqatsiiii…
KurtMac

Just look at it.
Anonymous

I could have sworn that read “Salami-snorting robot”. Sounded interesting, and I kept thinking this all the way through this sentence: “…fun video of a giant machine that snorts salami. Something about the way the salami wiggles on the conveyer belt…”

I REALLY wanted to see this at that point. Then crushing realization set in. Oh well.
geech

I just had the good fortune of watching this with the sound down while Yello – Live at the Roxy played in the background. Salami sublimity
ackpht

Those *are* being sorted- only the salami oriented parallel to the conveyor motion axis are being picked. The end effectors of the robots don’t look as though they could handle a rotated salami. You could build a robot to do that of course, with additional time and money. Note also that the machine “remembers” which packaging spaces have been filled, so there is no vision system scanning the packaging conveyor.

I agree that this looks like a plug-in replacement for a manual sorting system, rather than a clean-sheet salami packaging process.
- jackie31337
  
  “The end effectors of the robots don’t look as though they could handle a rotated salami.”
  
  I’m sorry, I’m giggling way too much over that than a woman of my age should. *snerk*
  - ackpht
    
    But what they lack in adaptability they make up in speed and endurance.
Anonymous

I’m hungry now.
Anne K.

I nanny for a salami loving three year old who would probably faint from delight upon seeing a video with so much dancing salami.
Adam Fields

For some reason, I originally read this as “salami-snorting robot”. This is not as cool as that would have been.
flappy

Does the robot pick the music, too?
Duffong

At first they’re all jiggly… but then they all settle down because they’re tired.
WalterBillington

The wriggling is their death throes, poor things. You see, they’re a bit of an animal.
Phikus

You can’t hide the salami from these robotic arms!
B. NÃ¤slund

Being one who are currently studying to be learn to build this kind of set up I can tell you that it’s more complex than it looks.

Clips like these makes me all the more sure that I got into the right line of education. Automation and robotics rock!
Robert

Just look at those alien arms harvesting those poor dead Mexican Jumping Worms. Just look at them.
Anonymous

The headline promised ‘sorting’ but the video delivered only ‘picking’. I want my minutes back! And some real salami sorting!
MarkM

I dunno. This seems overengineered. Do you really need
4 robots to do the organization of the salami?
Isnt there some way to order it in rows (sans robots) right
after you produce and encase the salami in plastic?
- Anonymous
  
  If you are starting from scratch, probably. I would guess that this module is designed to replace human sorters in existing production lines. Minimal down-time and engineering required.
  
  A good idea. No sapient creature should be doing ridiculous drudge work like sorting sausages.
Anonymous

wouldn’t it be significantly more efficient to prevent the sausages from becoming randomly distributed after their creation in the first place? certainly a nice obeisance to rube-goldberg (or Heath-Robinson-ian if one prefers) this way ..but…?
HotPepperMan

Peperone (to use the correct term) are a variety of salami but not in the form presented here. These things are a sodium, colourant, and ‘bits of animal’ nightmare. Sealed up in plastic and foil… yuk!

The changing of traditional foods into commercial products is a nightmare to see.
Anonymous

If you watch to the end you find that those are actually Peperami.
Mikey

Like many above, I also happened upon this video with the sound off and music playing…it was Get Innocuous by LCD Soundsystem and it worked great. It even synced a little bit when the robots first start moving.

If this company can build robots that sort Peperami and pancakes, what can’t they do?
autobulb

Woah. And I thought the robots in “The Second Renaissance” were moving too quickly for reality, but they move the same way!

Unrelated: I always get excited when boingboing says “Signing you in”, only to get disappointed to have to put in my user name and password for the millionth time.
pinehead

Today, prepackaged salami. Tomorrow, your heart surgery.
- PapayaSF
  
  That makes me imagine comatose heart patients on a conveyor belt, getting robotic surgery, then having the belt split to move successful surgeries to recovery rooms, and unsuccessful ones directly to the morgue….
RufusTheGreat

Much like Rocky III, I think the action is somewhat entertaining, but the film lacks a cohesive story or plot. I’m left wondering where the salamis came from, why the robots pick those salamis and what happens to the salamis that are not picked. I want to see another film, where the difficulties of being an unpicked salami are explored through a fight with a larger, blonder, Russian salami.