Arm-A-Dine, developed by researchers at RMIT University’s Exertion Games Lab, is a prototype chest-mounted robotic feeding arm of sorts that is designed to augment the social experience of eating. This contraption not only grabs food from the table, but also decides on who to feed it to, thanks to a facial recognition app running on an attached smartphone. That’s right, it scans your partner’s expression and only feeds them if they’re smiling, while a neutral expression causes the arm to hover ambiguously in the middle.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), Arm-A-Dine is not a commercial project so the arms can only grab certain items, have limited degrees of movement, and don’t seem to be that accurate when it comes to actually feeding people. However, the testers did manage to work around its limitations and engage with the person opposite, rather than just relaxing.
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