Polish student team builds innovative meal-serving robot

A team of students and graduates of the Wroclaw University of Technology in western Poland have constructed 'Bistrobot', a machine for the self-service sale of hot meals. The creators, who work together as the Food Robotics company, say it is the world's first such device.

"We hope our project will change the future of gastronomy and revolutionise the way we look at meals and how we perceive food served by machines," project coordinator Wojciech Jopek said during the robot's presentation. 

Innovators from Food Robotics say they were inspired by growing awareness of healthy nutrition. According to them, Bistrobot responds to people's needs in this respect as it offers a combination of healthy and easily available food. As the project coordinator pointed out, despite the fact that meals are sold from a machine, they are not highly processed, do not contain preservatives and are prepared from fresh ingredients.

For now, the robot's menu offers six made-to order meals. "They are restaurant meals," Jopek said. "Made by a chef." During the preparation process, which takes two to four minutes, one can also learn about the meal's composition.

Bistrobot's creators stress their project is distinguished by the innovative application of freezing technology and a hybrid heating system. "The meals are cooled to a temperature of -20 degrees, which enables their freshness and high quality to be maintained. To warm the food we use a special technology - very high-power infrared heaters," Jopek explained.

The machine's supervision system is also innovative. "We have full remote control over the device and we know what is happening with it at every moment," Jopek added.