Matt's Concept

Abstract

Team NRG’s goal is to design and build a robot capable of replacing the burger cooking duties of the line cooks at most fast-food restaurants. To this end the design must be able to load and arrange the beef patties on the grill, flip them at the appropriate time to ensure they are cooked evenly and thoroughly, and remove them from the grill when done. My solution is to design an end-effector that will be attached to a 2 Degree of Freedom (DOF) Cartesian robot which will utilize two vertically oriented conveyor belts to move the patties. These belts will have the patties held between them, allowing for transport and temporary storage. Neither the manipulator nor robot will require any motion in the vertical axis, as wedge shaped flaps will tilt down when needed to provide a ramp for the patties to ride up into the mechanism.