This Vending Machine Will Make You Breakfast Slower than You Can Do it Yourself

Breakfast – the most important meal of the day – is also the easiest meal to make. Just pour some cereal and milk into a bowl and quicker than you can say “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” (if you say it super slowly), you’ve got yourself the breakfast of champions (particularly if you favor Wheaties). Leave it to the world’s biggest breakfast cereal manufacturer, Kellogg’s, partnered with DoorDash-owned Chowbotics to come up with a way to make that daily ritual complicated… with robots.

Specifically, they produced a vending machine operated by robots. Instead of just doing the pouring yourself, The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot lets you make a touchscreen selection of your preferred dairy (milk or yogurt), combinations of cereals and granolas, and toppings like fruit or cocoa nibs.

A retooled version of Chowbotics’ “Sally” fresh food and salad robot, the Kellogg’s Bowl Bot is basically a Coca-Cola Freestyle soda machine…but for breakfast. It’s g-r-r-r-e-a-t if you’re on the run, have run out of Frosted Mini-Wheats, you’re simply the worst cook on the planet.

If choosing a cereal combo is too daunting a task, the robot can whip up a premium combo from its preset menu of things like the “Hawaii 5-0 (Frosted Mini-Wheats, Bear Naked Fit Triple Berry Granola, pineapple, coconut, and mango). Or you could just punch in an order for my personal recipe called “Sugar Rush”: Froot Loops, Sugar Smacks, and Kellogg’s new Little Debbie Cosmic Brownie Cereal with rainbow chips. Then ask your doctor if insulin replacement therapy is right for you.

 

The robots are being launched at college campuses, where sleepy students at the University of Wisconsin -Madison and Florida State University can skip cafeteria lines by paying the Kellogg’s robot $2.99 to $6.50 per bowl

This robotic pizza-vending machine automates the entire gourmet pizza-making process!





While frozen pizzas will always have a place in my heart (all those years as a student living on a strict budget), it seems they may be short-lived. A company has built what they claim is a ‘pizza vending machine’ that uses robots to automate the pizza-making process. Called the Piestro (a portmanteau of Pie and Maestro), this machine allows you to order artisanal pizzas with a few button-taps. Choose your toppings and the entire apparatus puts your pizza together from scratch, dispensing sauce evenly on the base, generously scattering the toppings, loading it with cheese, and then baking the pie before dispensing it out to you neatly tucked in a pizza-box. Sure, the Piestro won’t replace actually eating a true-blue New York-style pizza handmade by a master pizzaiolo, but it sort of rings the death knell for pre-packaged pizzas, and possibly even for fast-food chains like Dominos and Pizza Hut… because guess what, the Piestro can run 24×7, allowing you to order a pizza even at 3am in the morning.

The Piestro’s process starts with a pre-made pizza base (it’s easier and lasts longer than fresh wet dough) onto which it pours generous dollops of sauce. The pizza moves down the conveyor belt where the toppings you choose (using a touchscreen interface) are scattered on top of it, right before the pizza makes its way into an oven that cooks the toppings. Sort of like one of those toy-grabbing machines, the entire process is visible behind a transparent panel, before the pizza finally pops out of an opening at the base of the machine taking just 3 minutes from start to finish.

The creators of the Piestro highlight how useful a pizza-vending machine would be in current times. It works without any human intervention, and apart from the fact that it needs to be replenished with fresh ingredients ever so often, the Piestro can practically work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing fresh pizzas to people even in a lockdown. Not to mention the fact that the pizza comes untouched by human hands (try and match that, Dominos). The company’s even partnering with PopID to ensure contactless payments by relying on facial recognition to authenticate payments to the pizza machine. The Piestro is currently in its funding stages, looking for partners and investors to hop on board and bring this robotic pizza-master to life.

Designer: Piestro

You Could Empty This Cardboard Vending Machine with a Box Cutter

When it comes to unusual vending machines, Japan is the place that always comes to mind first. After all, this is the country that gave us machines that vend bananas and fried chicken. But this particular vending machine isn’t notable for what it vends, but what it’s made out of.

What you’re looking at is a full-size, working vending machine that’s made primarily out of cardboard. Like other vending machines, this one dispenses canned drinks, though it offers neither refrigeration, nor does it have a coin mechanism. Instead, it has a simple push button and rubber band system that causes drinks to drop into its tray. At least it doesn’t have those stupid spiral things that snack machines like to steal your purchases with. Though I do love it when you occasionally stumble onto someone else’s misfortune and get a two-for-one deal from those coils.

The machine is set up at the offices of cardboard box company Hacomo in Kagawa City, and you can check it out in action in the Twitter post below:

It’s a cool design for sure, but I don’t think it would last very long if a soda can exploded and sprayed all over the insides of this thing, or if someone went near it with an open flame. On the other hand, it’s probably much easier to move around than a regular vending machine, and wouldn’t kill you if it fell onto you while shaking it.

If you like the idea of a cardboard vending machine, Hacomo makes a miniature desktop version that’s available for about $9 on Amazon Japan.

[via SoraNews24]

These Mini Vending Machines Won’t Eat Your Money

If you’ve ever spent time in Japan, you know there’s a certain love for vending machines in the nation that seems unequalled by any other place. From the moment you touch down at Tokyo Narita airport, there are numerous vending machines by the gates. Most of them dispense innocuous stuff like energy drinks, but there are also machines around Japan that vend everything from pizza to corn on the cob if you know where to look for them.

J Dream’s miniature vending machines are the perfect desktop addition for anyone who enjoys making purchases from these coin-operated machines.

The set includes four tiny machines: a duo of cola dispensers, one that sells coffee cans, and another that vends energy drinks. You’ll also get a box filled with 20 teensy cola cans you can stick into backs of the the machines, and they’ll actually vend them when you push the button. You can check them out in action in the video below:

Ironically, these miniature vending machines were originally sold in Japan out of their famous Gashapon machines, which dispense a random assortment of toys in plastic capsules. The complete set is available from importer Japan Trend Shop for $33, or from Amazon Japan for about $25.

This Desktop Fridge Is a Soda Can Vending Machine

Do you drink cans of soda to keep motivated during the day at work? You could get up from your desk and walk over to the vending machine, but that requires too much effort. What you need is your own desktop soda vending machine. This one from Japan should do the trick just fine.

Thanko’s compact desktop refrigerator holds up to 10 cans of your favorite drinks, and dispenses them with ease. Just load two cans onto each of its five shelves, and when you’re ready for an icy cold beverage, just push the appropriate button. The only problem with this design is that since it doesn’t require payment, you can’t charge your office mates if they want to pilfer one of your cans of Dr. Pepper.

The desktop soda vending machine is available from Thanko Japan, where it sells for ¥15800 (~$150 USD). I’m not sure if you can get one shipped to the US, but it’s worth a shot if you want one.

This Vending Machine Serves Up Fried Chicken

Food dispensed from a machine is usually not the freshest, but what if we’re talking about a vending machine that serves up fresh fried chicken? That’s what the Lawson Karaage-kun robot does. Naturally, the machine looks like a chicken too, because Japan. A chicken serving chicken? That just seems wrong.

Japanese convenience chain Lawson Inc. is testing out the machine right now at an outlet in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo. The machine has “state-of-the-art” technology that allows it to fry chicken in a little over a minute. Basically, fried chicken is prepared and kept warm until someone orders it. That’s not my definition of “fresh,” but to each their own.

If the machine proves successful, the company may adapt it to dish out other types of fried foods. Hell, maybe we will see this chicken-faced machine at KFC soon. I hope not because it looks a bit terrifying if you ask me. The trial will only operate during the daytime from now until December 28, 2018, so if you happen to be in Tokyo, you might want to go check it out.

[via The Japan Times via Mike Shouts]

Awesome Pokémon Vending Machines Are Showing Up in Japan

If you spend any time in Japan you’ll want to check out these nifty new vending machines selling Pokémon merchandise.  They seem to mainly sell Pokémon plushes, and they even deliver the goods in a special Pokémon box. Needless to say, people are excited that they can buy their goodies from official Pokémon Center vending machines now.

Pikachu is on the video screen to help you if you need anything and just cheer you on in general. There are two smaller display screens that show advertisements for stuff like TV shows and products, because what would your purchase be without advertising?

Pokémon fans will be thrilled if they encounter one of these machines in the wild. So far, the machines have shown up in places like Narita Airport, a service area in Shizuoka, Aqua City Odaiba, and a toll road rest stop in the Kanagawa prefecture.

The vending machines support Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean languages, so even if Japanese isn’t your native tongue, you can still make a purchase. Too bad we don’t have more cool vending machines like these in the United States. I’m certain that Pokémon fans here would love to buy some merch from one of these.

[via Nintendo Life via Comic Book]

Giant Vending Machine Doles Out Fords in China

Buying a car is an expensive decision. So how can car manufacturers get you to pull the trigger and make a purchase? By making it fun. That’s what this huge car vending machine in China is all about. Ford and Alibaba built this vending machine for cars that you can try before you buy. The Super Test-Drive Center in Guangzhou was announced at the end of 2017 and now it is ready.


This oversize vending machine holds 42 cars, letting you test drive and hopefully say yes to a new Ford. To schedule a test drive, users share a selfie, then pay a nominal test-drive fee and pass a credit check using Alibaba’s Tmall app. Once this is done, they can grab a car to test it out. Prospective buyers can choose from 10 different models, including the Mondeo, the Explorer, even an imported Mustang. Then they can spend the next three days driving it before returning it to the machine.

Sadly this won’t be around long, but it will run between now and April 23rd. I guess we will see if this gets them more sales or less. If it gets more, I’m sure we will see it happen again in at least a few locations.

[via Gasgoo via Engadget]

This Japanese Coffee Vending Machine Shows Live Video of Your Coffee Brewing Inside

Japan makes all kinds of weird and wonderful things. This is not the strangest by far, but it is pretty cool. Check out this coffee vending machine that includes a live video feed of the inner workings of the machine.

So now you can be entertained while your coffee is brewing – by watching your coffee be brewed. And you will know just how good of a job the machine did. I guess it could always trick you and just play a pre-recorded video, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, because Japan.

Thanks for taking away the mystery Japan. At least it’s not a sausage vending machine, because I don’t need to know how that’s made.

[via Hedonistica via Geekologie]

McDonald’s Testing a Big Mac “ATM”

What the!? ATMs are for money. Now they’re for burgers? Yep, now you can go to the ATM and get some money, then go to another ATM and get a Big Mac. The circle is now complete. In this case, ATM must stand for Artery Terrorizing Machine.

Image via @BostonTweet

Yes, this is real. On January 31st, hungry people in Boston will have the opportunity to order McDonald’s Big Macs from a vending machine like this one. You can select from a Big Mac, a Mac Jr, or a Grand Mac. Obviously if it does well, you’ll eventually see these all over the place, in and out of McDonald’s.

It won’t be long until you be able to get fries, shakes, Happy Meals, Filet ‘O Fishes, Egg McMuffins, and everything else from an Mickey D’s ATM. But is it still McDonald’s if the food isn’t served by a pimply faced college kid?

[uncoached via Neatorama]

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