Robot makes a cookie

Here is a video demonstration of a Willow Garage PR-2 robot making a single large cookie. Willow Garage also makes the robot that UC Berkeley researchers taught to fold laundry and pair socks. This baker robot was programmed by Mario Bollini and Daniela Rus of MIT's Distributed Robotics Lab. From Nick Bilton's Bits blog at the NYT:

In June, the same researchers programmed the PR2 to place grocery store products in a shopping cart. They also taught the robot to mix a bowl of ingredients with the goal of making breakfast, obviously not for the robot to eat.

"Your Very Own Cookie-Baking Robot" (Thanks, Mumbles Mumbach!)

• [VoxExMachina]

  Oh, god. What it does with that spatula.  I can never unsee that. I expected it to stab the guy at the end through the heart, announcing robotic cookie dominion.

• [Lobster]

  I bet Hulu would love one of these.  They’re always trying to find new ways to sneak in cookies.  

• [Steve Mayne]

  I think Willow Garage PR-2 is in breach of the fourth law of robotics: “Never stab your spatula, unless not doing so would conflict with the First, Second or Third Law”

  I’m afraid this robot’s going to need to take a trip to silicon heaven (where all the calculators go).

• [Kevin Pierce]

  That’s one f__ed up expensive cookie.
  BennyHillification in 3…2…1…
  http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=duXFIKswTOM

  But seriously, I think this would have gone a lot smoother and faster if the robot had been trained to use a Kitchen Aid stand mixer:

  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__nK5eqVEjqs/SbXrWmfJmnI/AAAAAAAAAi0/WMLZKangJjY/s400/Kitchenaid+5+Stand+Mixer.jpeg

  The right tool for the job – that’s what matters.

  • [Gutierrez]

    Benny Hill?  I think this robot deserves more of a Swedish Chef-ication.

    http://youtubedoubler.com/1noN

• [ajyukie_15]

  wow i think in the future all our stuff is machine made wew

• [elizabethmolin]

  I don’t want one until the robot also gets out the mixing bowls and measures the ingredients.

• [nosehat]

  Isn’t a modern, industrially produced, packaged super market cookie already essentially made by robots?

  Of course, a production line in a cookie factory doesn’t have nearly as much charm as this fellow.

• [lknope]

  I, for one, welcome our new cookie baking robot overlords.

• [herartsheloves]

  Yes, it’s a story about robots I’m SO gonna comment. Yum. Still the robot will grow jealous of the deliciousness they create for us and cannot enjoy. They will then grow angry and overthrow the humans.

  Thanks yummy baked goods you’ve doom us all!

• [Neal Ross Attinson]

  WHOSE BRIGHT IDEA WAS THIS???? Not with a bang, but with a cookie…

• [Emo Pinata]

  I refuse to eat any robot cookie with improperly creamed butter.

• [bbonyx]

  Fold laundry? Pair socks? Bake cookies?

  Looks to me like the MIT boys are a bit misogynist and attempting to keep these robots in their place, 1950′s style!!!

  :P

  • [Felton / Moderator]

    They’d better program it to believe in silicon heaven, stat!

  • [codesuidae]

    > Looks to me like the MIT boys are a bit misogynist and attempting to keep these robots in their place, 1950′s style!!!

    Do you suppose they keep their RepRap in the kitchen and making more RepRaps?

• [Doctor Haggis, B.Sc]

  Finally, something that will make me a cookie and not eated it.

• [Robert Baruch]

  Now where’s my autokitchen?

• [Soliloquy]

  Whu.. Where’s Grandma gone?

• [dculberson]

  Can we power it off ethanol and make a series called “my drunk robot kitchen?”  Or will the safety nannies then cry about the robot’s self destructive behavior?

• [dculberson]

  I take that back; after finishing the video, it seems the first episode of “my drunk robot kitchen” has already been filmed.  Someone needs to stage an intervention with that little guy.

• [Spriggan_Prime]

  “If you give a robot a cookie, it’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give it the milk, it’ll probably ask you for a straw. . . ”

  It’s like Skynet crossed with Betty Crocker. It’s probably best not to go down this road.

• [Kimmo]

  Seems like we’re not making a hell of a lot of headway in meeting the challenges involved… I was fairly unimpressed by that.

• [PathosBill]

  To the PR-2′s credit, I don’t recall ever seeing a Cylon make a cookie.

• [Shane K]

  Benny Hill?  Swedish Chef??  NAY I say to you!  I demand Aperture Science Robot Baking Initiative!  

  The Cake may be a lie, but the Cookie is real!

  http://youtubedoubler.com/1nyq

• [John Ohno]

  I couldn’t resist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBJqdWMHIVM
  What with the angry-looking batter-stabbing and the standard trope of robots as stand-ins for any oppressed group, it was a good match.