This robot can 3D-print and bake a pizza in six minutes

Mar 3, 2017, 23:51 IST

BeeHex's bot, called the Chef 3D, can produce any type of pizza in any shape, French says. Like most 3D printers, it hooks up to a computer that tells it which dough, sauce, and cheese to use.

The team hasn't finalized which brands will carry it, but Six Flags may sign on, French says. Customers will be able to order them at kiosks, which may look like this.

Customers will also eventually be able to order pizzas through the BeeHex app, which will ping them when they're ready. First, you choose the pizza's size (10 or 12-inch), dough (plain, tomato, or gluten-free), sauce (tomato basil, pesto, or vodka), and cheese (mozzarella or burrata).

The pizza possibilities are endless, French says. BeeHex's system can take any jpg file and turn it into a pizza shape — even one that looks like Donald Trump.

After you place your order, the nozzle applies a layer of liquefied dough in the shape you want.

A pressurized system pushes each ingredient from the cartridges through the tubes and then out the nozzles. For harder cheeses like Parmesan, the bot knows to release more pressure.

The Chef 3D then repeats the process for the sauce and melted cheese. This process takes about one minute.

When it's done, you pop it into a 400-degree oven for five minutes ... and voilá! Time to slice up your 3D-printed pizza.

I tried a slice, which tasted exactly like a normal pizza. However, the pizza did cool off very quickly due to the ultra-thin crust. After a few minutes, the slices can taste more like crackers than pizza. (BeeHex's creations are served best right after they come out of the oven.)

When piping hot, BeeHex's pizzas rival those made by real chefs — maybe even better. "It has the potential to create more interesting foods, like, say, a pastry with hundreds of different layers," French says. "These are things that you just can't make with human hands."

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