Bear Robotics | Here to help the waiter
Would you like to eat in a robot-run restaurant? Or would you prefer a restaurant in which the waiter is being helped by a robot that helps them carry your food? Bear Robotics is designed not to replace human waiters but to act as an assistant. Korean restaurant Kang Nam Tofu House in Milpitas, California is the first to try out Bear Robotics. Owner of Bear Robotics and the Korean restaurant John Ha wants to make the management of restaurants easier!
Bear Robotics | The robot called Penny
“Our goal is to automate the hard part of [restaurant] work, so employees focus more on customer service,” says John Ha, who is both the owner of the restaurant and the co-founder of Bear Robotics, the startup that designed the robot. John Ha used to work as an engineer at Google before he invested in the restaurant. He had to educate himself in the restaurant business. Soon realizing that technology could help to improve the experience for his guest. He build the robot Penny for Bear Robotics which was first piloted at his own restaurant.
Penny is a small, pedestal-shaped robot and it’s designed to navigate in a restaurant and it uses sensors to avoid obstacles. If there is an obstacle in the way of the robot, it will automatically stop. You only have to program the location of each table, chairs or any other obstacle but once this is done you can direct the robot to the table that is waiting for its food. As Penny, the robot, is doing the running back and forth from the restaurant to the kitchen and vice versa, waiters gain time to interact with their guests.
John Ha now want to sell the restaurant according to our source Fast Company to focus solely on Bear Robotics. He will start to pilot the robot in other Bay Area restaurant, even with multiple robots in service simultaneously. Next it seems like they’re even thinking in solutions in which the waiter is assisted in more service duties. Check out their latest video below!
Website: Bear Robotics
