Why Flippy, the burger-flipping Robot got fired after just one day of job?

Robots taking up human jobs is not a news anymore. Well, more and more robots are doing things that we used to do earlier. Remember Arya, the tea making robot who can make you a perfect 'adrak-elaichi chai whenever you want.

Well, Flippy was also built on similar lines to help making burgers. But looks like, humans have a lot to kearn before the two can work in tandem. "Flippy" the hamburger turning robot was fired after only a day at a CaliBurger restaurant in Pasadena, California.

No, it wasn’t that Flippy was bad at flipping. The spatula-wielding robot, which relies on image-recognition and heat-sensing technology, can flip up to 2,000 burgers a day. It’s just that it was too fast, and its human co-workers were unable to match up to it's speed.

Flippy has been switched off at the CaliBurger grill while its human helpers are receiving a crash course in how to work efficiently alongside the robot. “Mostly it’s the timing,” Anthony Lomelino, the chief technology officer for Cali Group told USA Today. “When you’re in the back, working with people, you talk to each other. With Flippy, you kind of need to work around his schedule. Choreographing the movements of what you do, when and how you do it.”

Cali group earlier had plans to install Flippy units in 50 locations including Seattle and Annapolis, Maryland but looks like there may be some delay in that as their human staff need some training beforehand.

Flippy is the work of Miso Robotics, a company aiming to revolutionise the commercial kitchen and improve working conditions. When it comes to Flippy, they use 3D, thermal and regular vision to detect the moment raw burger patties are placed onto the grill. Flippy will then monitor the burger in real-time and will also display the cooking time on a screen. The robot costs around $60,000 each and another $12,000 a year to run.