{"id":4730,"date":"2017-05-24T09:49:19","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T13:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=4730"},"modified":"2025-08-23T16:46:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:46:29","slug":"robots-will-be-making-your-pizza-starting-fall-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2017\/05\/24\/robots-will-be-making-your-pizza-starting-fall-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"Robots Will Be Making Your Pizza Starting Fall Semester"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nHow would you feel about robots replacing the staff in the Kelly Commons cafeteria? This is becoming a real thing at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in the fall of 2017. Instead of handing your student ID to a real person, you\u2019ll be swiping it in a computer to gain access to the cafeteria.<\/p>\n

Students at the University of Maine at Orono are already experiencing this. Once they scan themselves in, they approach a conveyor belt where different computers line the wall adjacent to it. Here they can order a meal of their choice based on the menu of the day. The food arrives on a conveyor belt within minutes. The food was not cooked or prepared by a person but rather a robot.<\/p>\n

This is a new change happening within the University of Maine system. \u201cThe rise in minimum wage has caused some involuntary changes and we regret that we have to make cuts,\u201d Ray Rice, President of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, said.<\/p>\n

Starting in Orono, each college in the system is going to eventually change over to a cafeteria and kitchen completely operated by an automated system. The system will be introduced to UMPI in the fall of 2017.<\/p>\n

Chris Bell, Campus Operations Officer, says that there have been mixed feelings about the automated system. \u201cIt\u2019s been a formulating idea for about three years but it wasn\u2019t until the minimum wage law passed that it became a solid possibility. Orono was the first to experiment for this in their spring semester,\u201d Bell said. \u201cThere has been mostly positive responses from students but some of the older, non-students are still skeptical.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of replacing real people with robots is not new. McDonalds and other fast food chains have already installed a similar system in several locations throughout the United States. There\u2019s been an assorted response about this. How does it affect local business? How is it affecting our economy?<\/p>\n

\u201cRaising the minimum wage does increase family income for many low-wage workers but it is also affecting businesses. There\u2019s a lot of businesses and industries that just can\u2019t afford to have that many employees. We\u2019re just trying to compensate,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea has been adopted across the entire University of Maine system. Between 2017 and 2019, all seven schools will eventually be introducing this system to their campus,\u201d Rice said. \u201cWe have teamed up with Sedexo to make this possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell explained that the Kelly Commons cafeteria will be under renovation during the summer to adhere to the new system-wide modification. \u201cWe will still have real people working but it\u2019ll be very few. We have to have somebody to make sure all the equipment is working smoothly and someone to supervise in the case of technical issues or if anybody needs assistance,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n

The idea of a robot computer system taking over the cafeteria is going to be a great change to the campus. All foods will be cooked and served by the automation. Bell is confident that the students at UMPI will take the new renovations with optimism. \u201cIt\u2019ll take a little while for everybody to get used to it because it\u2019s something very different and innovative. We\u2019ve never done anything like this before,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI think students will find this to be interesting and the food selection will be more customizable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly a big step for UMPI as technology is quickly advancing. Some of the larger colleges such as Washington and Ohio state have already fully implemented automatic robots in several different departments on their campuses. The number of real people needed to man these positions has been rapidly declining because it\u2019s cheaper and more efficient for businesses and college institutions to use robots. Is this a good thing? That\u2019s entirely up to you to decide.<\/p>\n

If you have questions, comments, or concerns contact Chris Bell or Ray Rice.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How would you feel about robots replacing the staff in the Kelly Commons cafeteria? This is becoming a real thing at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in the fall of 2017. Instead of handing your student ID to a real person, you\u2019ll be swiping it in a computer to gain access to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8868,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4730\/revisions\/8868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}