Swittle The Japanese Liquid Pick Up Machine

Fishy. Everything liquid/gel it picks up is off of that supposedly Teflon surface. No explanation about what the gel substance itself is and how quick-hardening it might be. Final fishy thing: the manufacturing line scene is ridiculously slow and unrelated to the supposed big selling point. 12 seconds to put 1 potato chip back in a box? How fast do you think Lay's can do it?

It appears they are using wax food model (common in the front of Japanese restaurants) condiments to demonstrate the device just as they are using towels instead of real meat.

From the video:
"The demo used a compact robot hand to scoop up and transport complicated forms >resembling< a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise"

Notice the video cut after he squirts the bottle. Notice that the liquid does not run or drip when held upside down or sideways. Notice the edges curled up on the table. They are using quick drying red and white gels to demonstrate the device.

However, a device capable of picking up and moving items without altering their relative position would be useful in a factory setting. It could pack materials that currently have to be packed by hand. It's just a sales demo to demonstrate that capability.

@FrogC4,

Yes the current model was performing slower. However, it can perform 24/7 without rest, breaks, pay, or benefits. It would never go on strike, call in sick, or sexually harass a coworker.

Production models would move quite a bit quicker. It needs something to maintain the position of the bag, if it moved to quickly the bag would just fall off. It could potentially pack hundreds of times faster than a human hand.

I saw this featured on tv recently (here in Japan). They set a challenge for the maker Mr. Tsubaki to go to this restaurant which serves a dessert that is meringue balanced on strawberries and cream.The dessert is totally wobbly. They had to pick up the dessert and transfer it to another plate without it toppling over which the machine completed successfully.

The stuff they pick up in the video is ketchup and mayonnaise, the bottles you see are as they come packaged here. And remember the voice over may not have been the person at the event. So he might be saying what he believes it to be. It's not wax models as suggested.

I'm not sure about the potato chip reference that FrogC4 made I don't see any potato chips in the video. The yellow packages are refill pouches for some kind of bath gel /cleaner.

I believe that a machine like this would work. However, I think this might be a solution looking for a problem. Can anyone think of a situation where this would be useful?

I read somewhere it could be used by bakers to transport dough that is too soft to be lifted without mishaping its form (like an uncooked pretzel). I don't see why they can't just shape the dough straight on the baking tray though.

It feels like a prototype infomercial invention for picking up crap off the kitchen floor.