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Meet the robots making food, cocktails at 2022 Winter Olympics

Posted at 10:31 PM, Feb 05, 2022
and last updated 2022-02-06 02:22:06-05

What does it feel like to have a robot take out your trash? Clean your floor? Make and deliver your food? Whip up a coffee or a cocktail?

Attendees at the 2022 Winter Olympics are experiencing a world where robots cater to their nearly every whim. 

These machines are meant to both maximize efficiency and limit the spread of COVID-19 by reducing human-to-human contact.

At the Main Media Center in Beijing, diners order food not from waiters, but from their phones. Their meals are then delivered through tracks on the ceiling, dropping directly down to their tables which are separated by plexiglass.

Beijing Food Robots
A cooking robot makes clay pot rice, with the dishes delivered through the tracks above tables at the dining hall in the Main Media Center.
Liu Lu/VCG via Getty Images

Or, diners can pick up their food from a designated area after a cooking robot makes items like clay pot rice and sorts it nicely onto a tray.

Cooking Robot at 2022 Winter Olympics
A cooking robot makes clay pot rice at the Main Media Center.
Liu Lu/VCG via Getty Images

Scattered around the media center are robots that keep the floor clean. Even the garbage bins are machines.

Cleaning Robot
An intelligent mopping robot at the Main Media Center.
Liu Lu/VCG via Getty Images
Garbage Robots
Robotic rubbish bins are pictured at the Main Media Center.
Carl Court/Getty Images

Anyone seeking a break can head to the cocktail bar or the coffee bar, where a robot will serve up a beverage.

Coffee Robot
A robot coffee maker prepares a beverage at the Zhangjiakou train station.
Carl Court/Getty Images
Cocktail maker
A robotic cocktail maker is pictured at the Main Media Center.
Carl Court/Getty Images

And if there are any complaints about how the drink wasn’t made right, these bartenders are literally not going to hear it.