Plover
Robotic dishwashing system deployed in a commercial dishroom.
Responsibilities
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Led overall product design bridging industrial design and mechanical engineering
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Designed tools, components, and mechanical systems enabling robotic dishwashing operations
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Developed hardware solutions for deployment in real commercial dishroom environments
General-purpose robots for kitchens, starting with dishwashing.
Our robots are driven by advanced neural networks trained on thousands of hours of real dishwashing. With millimeter-level 3D perception, they can identify dishes in messy piles, grasp them reliably, and wash them to commercial standards.
Each robot operated 24/7, washing an average of 5,000 dishes per week.
A commercial dishroom is wet, dirty, slippery, and very space-constrained.
So the design had to balance many real-world constraints at once, including usability, cleanability, and safety. We visited real restaurant dishrooms, studied the workflow in context, identified inefficiencies, and clarified where our robot could create value.
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I explored multiple concepts closely with the engineering team, from 2D to 3D. In the office, we built physical prototypes using 80/20 aluminum frames because they were easy to adjust and reuse.
We also designed swappable robot fingers so the robot could pick different objects quickly and reliably. Instead of relying on one universal hand, the robot could switch fingers depending on the object and task.
For example, the plate finger (above) can pick both plates and bowls, even when they are covered with oil.
Another example is the utensil finger. The existing utensil finger (middle) was too slow for our application, so I designed this magnet finger (below). It can grab multiple utensils at once and even lift heavier items like a steel skillet.
As the only designer at the company, I also worked on the robot screen to show the robot’s status. My focus was to make the information clear through large text, simple animation, and color coding.
Further process and information available upon request.