Hamburgers: First fully-automated hamburger patty griller. After retrieving a stack of hamburger...

...patties from the freezer, it can handle, grill, and stack them into a warming tray.  To win this challenge, the machine must be installed in a real-life restaurant, operate continuously for at least 1,000 hours without error or malfunction, and serve at least 10,000 hamburgers to paying customers.


Future Challenges: To win the following future challenges, the machine must be installed in a real-life restaurant, operate continuously for at least 1,000 hours without error or malfunction, and serve at least 10,000 units of the food (burger or fries) to paying customers who must then fully eat them. First fully-automated:

1) Hamburger assembler.  The machine must put at least the following items onto a bun: one hamburger patty, a slice of cheese, two strips of bacon, ketchup, mustard, onions, and lettuce.  Then the assembler must wrap the burger and put it onto the warming tray where order takers can grab it and put it in a bag or on a tray.  To prevent cross-contamination for those with food allergies, the assembler then washes and sterilizes whatever manipulators it used to assemble the burger before doing the next burger.

2) French fries maker.  The machine must retrieve bags of frozen French fries from a freezer, put an appropriate amount into a deep fryer basket, safely lower the basket into a deep fryer, remove the basket when the fries are properly cooked, dump the fries into a tray, salt the fries, put the fries into containers, and put those containers into holding slots where order takers can grab them and put them into a bag or on a tray.

3) Fast food hamburger restaurant (including check-out counter and drive-thru).

4) Fast food hamburger restaurant owned and operated by a fast food restaurant chain (100 units or larger).

5) Hamburger restaurant chain (100 units or larger).

6) Major hamburger restaurant chain (1,000 units or larger).

Discussion:
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