My Science School

You might not often think about it that way, but cooking is a difficult skill with a number of factors in play. Just ask a robot! While human beings can learn to cook through observation, the same cannot be done easily by a robot. Programming a robot that can make a variety of dishes is not only costly, but also time-consuming.

A group of researchers from the University of Cambridge have programmed their robotic chef with a cookbook - eight simple salad recipes. The robot was not only able to identify which recipe was being prepared after watching a video of a human demonstrating it, but was also then able to make it. The results were reported in the journal ‘IEEE Access.’

Simple salads

For this study, the researchers started off by devising eight simple salad recipes and then made videos of themselves making these. A publicly available neural network programmed to identify a range of different objects was then used to train the robot chef.

The robot watched 16 videos and was able to recognise the correct recipe 93% of the time (15 times out of 16), even though it detected only 83% of the actions of the human chef in the video. The robot was able to recognise that slight variations (portions or human error) were just that, and not a new recipe. It even recognised the demonstration of a new, ninth salad, added it to its cookbook and made it.

Hold it up for them

The researchers were amazed at the amount of nuance that the robot could grasp. For the robot to identify, the demonstrators had to hold up the fruit or vegetable so that the robot could see the whole fruit or vegetable, before it was chopped.

These videos, however, were nowhere like the food videos with fast cuts and visual effects that trend on social media. While these are too hard for a robot to follow at the moment, researchers believe that robot chefs will get better and faster at identifying ingredients in videos like those with time, thereby becoming capable of learning a range of recipes quickly.

Picture Credit : Google 

pH Meter

A pH meter is an electric device that measures the concentration of hydrogen ions (or pH) in a solution to determine whether it is acidic or alkaline. It was invented in 1934 by the American chemist Arnold O. Beckman to measure the sourness of lemons.

It consists of a glass electrode that is sensitive to pH and another reference electrode. The device reads the potential difference between the two electrodes to arrive at results that are displayed electronically in the form of a pH value. This knowledge is critical in chemical lab work and healthcare.

Stethoscope

A stethoscope is a diagnostic instrument commonly used by doctors to listen to sounds made inside the human body-in the lungs, heart and pulse points. The device has two ear buds that are connected by a flexible cord to a sensitive sound detector at the other end.

French physician Dr René Laennec first used a cylindrical roll of paper to listen to chest sounds instead of using his ear in the early 19th Century. Later he improved upon this to create the first stethoscope for medical use (‘Stethos' meaning 'chest’ in Greek).

Barometer

A barometer is an instrument that measures the pressure exerted by the weight of the air in the atmosphere.

As changes in atmospheric pressure are directly related to changes in weather, a barometer is a useful instrument at all weather stations.

The device can be also used to measure altitude since atmospheric pressure changes with altitude.

Breathalyser

It is an instrument used to estimate blood alcohol content (BAC) in one's breath. The instrument that is presently used by the police to discourage drinking and driving is a prototype developed by Robert Frank Borkenstein in 1954. The person exhales into a tube attached to the device which then reads the level of alcohol in the sample breath.

Picture Credit : Google