There's no doubt about it  — robots are cool.

While we might dream of automated help fetching us a drink or doing our taxes, the most practical uses are industrial.

For instance, this robot picks, trims and packages mushrooms.

But other robots can be trained to pour concrete, unload rail cars, stack sandwiches, cut and wrap cheese, pick tomatoes, trim and drill bathtubs and handle bread dough.

"We specialize in vision-guided robotics," said Mike Boudreau, founder of TechBrew Robotics in Salmon Arm.

"Automation is not cheap, but a custom-built robot system can increase efficiency and reduce costs in the long run."

While TechBrew has been developing robots for businesses for 20 years, it just recently got into the mushroom game.

In hopes of landing some money to fund a mushroom robot pilot project, TechBrew entered and won the third annual OKGN Angel Summit.

The summit saw six finalist companies prepare and pitch great ideas and products to the judges to win $145,000 to invest in their business.

The final pitch session had to be held virtually this year because of COVID and keynote speaker Arlene Dickinson of Dragons' Den fame also had to deliver her speech via ZOOM.

In the end, judges awarded the money to TechBrew over five other companies — Enjine of Kelowna, Live It from Nelson, RocketPlan of Vancouver and Streamline Athletics from Vancouver.

"The money will allow us to conduct a pilot project on a specific farm to show what we can do with robotics for the whole industry," said Boudreau.

Mushrooms are usually grown indoors and the stereotype is true, it's dark.

The mushrooms grow on shelves that stretch four metres high, which means picking them by hand is labour intensive and awkward.

A vision-guided robotic arm can quickly and efficiently pick, trim and package the mushrooms.

"We saw an opportunity in the mushroom industry and one of our guys here at TechBrew just knocked on the door of a mushroom place and started to talk to them about robotic harvesting of mushrooms," said Boudreau.

Two of the mushroom growers TechBrew has now spoken to are Champs in Aldergrove and Highline in Hope.

Some of the the other robots TechBrew has designed pick tomatoes in the UK, unload grain and potash from rail cars at the Coquitlam and North Vancouver terminals and do the aforementioned cheese cutting, sandwich stacking, dough handling and concrete pouring.

An entry-level robotic system costs anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000.