Japan is known as the country of robots, and lately, robot engineers in this country seems to be obsessed with the idea of replacing human cooks and chefs. Following inventions like the sushi or pancake-making robot, it’s now time to replace ramen cooks (ramen is a famous Japanese noodle dish).

The coolest thing about the ramen robot that’s currently working in a restaurant in Yamanashi prefecture (west of Tokyo) is that it’s made by the owner of that place. Yoshihira Uchida (who studied electronics in university) says he invested five years and $200,000 in the robot.

All that customers need to do is to customize their order in a PC (which kind of soup, noodles etc.) and then watch the robot create the soup. A human cook takes care of the noodles and everything else. Brillant idea, especially because the success of the robot and media attention motivated Uchida to think about mass-producing his unique invention.

This video [JP] showing the robot in action I found on YouTube doesn’t look too appetizing though:

Via Mainichi Shimbun