A moneymaking idea during a labor shortage: invent a pizza robot with your friends
In an office park in Hawthorne, California, a robot built by rocket scientists is making pizza.
Inside the machine, a box roughly the size of a cargo van, a metal claw plucks a ball of premade dough out of its refrigerated chamber. A press then smashes the dough into a 12-inch disc. On a conveyor belt, a nozzle spits out sauce, dispensers shake cheese and toppings on top, then a robotic lift carries the raw pie to one of four 900-degree deck ovens. Cameras and sensors track the progress from step to step, making tiny adjustments along the way. In 45 seconds, a finished pizza pops out.
It tastes pretty good. It costs just $7 to order (or as much as $10, depending on toppings). And with slim labor costs and a chef that never eats, sleeps, or takes a break, the team behind Stellar Pizza think they can take a bite out of the country's $45-billion pizza market — or at least the part of the pie that's dominated by high-volume,
