Isolating robotic actuators from food and beverage preparation

A food-preparation robot, comprising:

• a plurality of dispensing stations configured to dispense food items;
• and
• a plurality of carriers, wherein:
• the plurality of carriers are configured to hold bowls to receive food items dispensed from selected ones of the dispensing stations to assemble a plurality of different food products corresponding to different selections among the dispensing stations,
• some of the dispensing stations are configured to dispense solid food items and some of the dispensing stations are configured to dispense liquid food items, and
• the plurality of carriers are configured to move concurrently, asynchronously among the dispensing stations to assemble the food products on a first-in, first-out basis, with some carriers among the plurality of carriers advancing between dispensing stations while others remain at dispensing stations;
• a barrier against which the plurality of carriers are configured to slide, the barrier being configured to impede airflow between the bowls an actuator moving at least some of the independently actuated workpiece carriers and shield the actuator from spilled food items;
• and
• a linear motor configured to move at least some of the plurality of carriers, wherein:
• each of the plurality of carriers comprise permanent magnets;
• the linear motor comprises electromagnets configured to generate electric fields that move the carriers by magnetically interacting with the permanent magnets;
• the plurality of carriers each have two and only two degrees of freedom of movement;
• the two degrees of freedom of movement comprise translation and rotation;
• the different food products are salads;
• the salads each have different sets of food items specified by consumers of the food products;
• at least some of the sets of food items are specified via a native application executing on a mobile computing device of a first consumer among the consumers and at least some of the sets of food items are specified via a touchscreen kiosk by a second consumer among the consumers;
• a given one of the dispensing stations comprises a sensor configured to sense a level of a food item in the given one of the dispensing stations;
• and
• the robot is configured to determine that the level is less than a threshold and send a message over a network to request a refill of the food item in the given one of the dispensing stations.