Eating out at a fast food restaurant is less about the quality of food and more about convenience, so big chains rarely prioritize the quality of ingredients, spending over half of their budgets on labour and operations instead. But now, the Spyce Kitchen is a 20 square feet automatic kitchen that could change this, by taking care of everything so that the restaurant can spend more money on better ingredients.

The Spyce Kitchen, a recent winner of the 2016 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, combines a fridge, dishwasher, stovetop, and a robo-chef in one device. It incorporates sensors that measure out the correct quantities of food and cook it at the right temperature. Diners order their meal through an app or a touch screen next to the machine, and have the option to customize the spices, sauces and ingredients. They then put a bowl under one of the cooking pots, and watch as the robot combine fresh ingredients and cook their meal in under five minutes. Meals currently on the menu include chickpea coconut curry on couscous and shrimp jambalaya.

Where could such a device come in useful?