3 . Cooking Robots Are Gaining Public Attention
The smart restaurant at the Main Media Center of Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games was once a hot topic during the 2022 Winter Olympics, attracting much attention online. In this restaurant, there was no chef or waiter to serve dishes. Chinese food, western food and cocktail were all prepared by robots. Customers could scan the QR code on the dining table to order, and the dishes would be transported to the table through the cloud rail system above, and then the cable would be lowered to put the dishes in front of the customer. Many Chinese and foreign journalists came to take pictures and videos of the process. Some videos shot by foreign journalists have gone viral on the Internet, making viewers around the world terribly amazed.
Yan Weixin, doctoral supervisor and associate researcher of the Robotics Institute, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, has been developing Chinese cuisine-cooking robots for over 17 years, and has developed more than 60 catering service robots. “Intelligent robot technology can operate according to a standardized Chinese food cooking process, which I believe has a promising prospect in application,” said Yan Weixin.
It’s quite accidental for Yan to start studying cooking robots. When he was choosing his doctoral research project in 2005, the one that he had planned to take was chosen by someone else. Yan’s supervisor made a joke in his office that an overweight man may be suitable for the development of cooking robots. Thanks to his words, by now, Yan has developed more than 60 catering service robots, including four types of functional components: pots and pans, other tools, firepower controllers and feeding tools, and has been granted nearly 30 patents.
Since the advent, these Chinese cuisine cooking robots have been soon used in restaurants and canteens, showing prominent advantages in using standardized cooking process, lowering labor costs, and reducing food safety risks through unmanned operation. And robots also help to inherit and spread Chinese cooking culture. “We have worked with a number of culinary masters to record their use of cooking ingredients and heat control, turn it into standardized recipes and then input them into the robot control systems so as to reproduce the culinary skills of the masters,” said Yan.
To the delight of this robot expert, a take-out company recently came to him to negotiate about cooperation in developing a series of special cooking robots so as to improve the cooking efficiency and reduce the labor costs. In the foreseeable future, the standardized Chinese food cooked by robots may reach thousands of households through take-out.
1. The underlined phrase “
go viral” in the first paragraph probably means “________”.
| A．gain popularity | B．become controversial |
| C．earn money | D．change for the better |
2. What can we infer from the first two paragraphs about the smart restaurant of the Beijing Winter Olympics?
| A．It did not need any employees thanks to the advanced robotic technology. |
| B．With a smartphone in hand, customers could get what they wanted to eat in it. |
| C．The cooking robots in it were all developed by a researcher from Shanghai. |
| D．It is 17 years since the cooking robots applied in it was put into practical use. |
3. The underlined phrase “
an overweight man” in the third paragraph refers to ________.
| A．Yan Weixin’s supervisor | B．Yan Weixin |
| C．Bing Dwen Dwen | D．a Chinse cuisine lover |
4. What is the writer’s attitude towards the development of cooking robots?
| A．Negative | B．Neutral | C．Supportive | D．Cautious |
