Your cooking partner is a
robot, your fridge can talk, and your plate is your own personal dietician. Oh,
and for a laugh you occasionally have a cook-off with a famous holographic
chef.
This may
sound like a scene from 1960s sci-fi cartoon The Jetsons, but the kitchens in
coming decades may not be so far off those envisioned by futurologists.
Today, a
number of significant developments in culinary tech are happening in the field
of robotics. A group of design students in Poland recently programmed an
industrial robot -- usually tasked with building cars -- to cook.
"Our
project is called 'Let's cook the future' and we try to cook with robots -- we
had a robot that initially was made just to be in factories and make cars and
we tried to treat it as a human and put it in the kitchen." Says Barbara
Dzaman, one of the students involved in the project.
The 'Let's cook the future' robot
"prints" cookies three-dimensionally, building them up layer by layer
in almost any shape you could imagine.
Dorota Kabala, an industrial designer working
alongside the students says that the project looks towards a future where
people can make dishes that are only limited by their imagination. "The
problem we are addressing in this project is the need for personalization of
production ... at the moment we can observe that people need more
personalization, more customization of products than before and now it's
possible."
Marek Cecula, a respected Polish designer,
ceramicist and visiting professor at the Royal College of Art, London, says
that he was "amazed" by the students' robot chef but felt that
"we simply don't know where this is going ... How will we relate to
objects made completely by a machine? How will these objects relate to our
emotions? Where will the relationship between person and object be when the
object is made by a machine?"
The introduction of robots into the home is not
new, of course. Many of us already live with electronics that have robotic
components, such as self-cleaning ovens, single-touch microwaves that
automatically adjust to the food you have put in them, and fridges that scan
used-by dates.
The trend for robots to perform unskilled
restaurant jobs has also led to robotic noodle slicers and mechanical
waiters,
though so far many are mere gimmicks rather than genuine technological
solutions.
Thomas Johansson, Design Director at Electrolux,
says that he thinks there is a place for robots in the kitchen: "I think kitchen
robots could potentially take over some of the common jobs that are repetitive
or difficult to do ... I think you could take away some of the boring chores
and spend your time doing something more interesting."
Away from robotics, Electrolux has been
exploring the creative fringe of kitchen design with its annual Design Lab
competition. The company recently announced the semi-finalists for 2013, which
include a 3-D food printer and an appliance that calculates the nutritional
values, possible toxins and freshness of your food before you start cooking.
Johansson says the range of
issues being tackled by students in the competition is fascinating in itself:
"A lot of the students are addressing issues like wellbeing, robotics,
bio-mimicry, wearable devices, air purification, and also using smart phones
and tablets as remote controls.
And then there are the issues about food
diagnostics, which are especially interesting in light of the horse meat
scandal. People are no longer that concerned about what frying pan they use,
but what is in the frying pan. Knowing what it is that you are eating is very
important."
With work being done in almost every field of
home design, it is likely that the kitchen of the future will look
significantly different to how it does today. As the old saying goes, the
kitchen will always be the heart of the home -- but increasingly that heart is
coming to resemble a pacemaker.
Source: CNN.com
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