A bit off-topic: Not only is this incredibly impressive, it's a great white noise video, IMHO. Can listen to the robot cook do it's thing for a loong time. The Capsicum Sabzi video has a good amount of unintended ASMR, too:
Whilst an impressively ambitious amateur electronics project, this is clearly not productisable and won't work for a whole ton of reasons. A reduced scope project or device however might be.
Building a clunky device that imitates human actions is hardly 'genius'. Resourceful maybe. An electrical coffee grinder isn't a normal coffee grinder with some rotating lever attached to it. An electrical coffee grinder has small motors attached to the grinder mechanism in order to make it move. This contraption is fun to build I am sure, but not 'genius'.
Here in Australia, Thermomix was recently ordered to pay $4.6 million in penalties for knowingly keeping safety issues relating to one of their appliances secret.
A malfunctioning lid caused hot liquid to escape from the bowl, giving several consumers severe burns. The Court found that Thermomix knew of this risk but still continued to promote and supply the faulty product.
I've been served Thermomix food and it was extremely unimpressive. I don't know how easy it was to make though, since I didn't participate in the cooking. I can just say that if it's any harder than microwaving it's probably not worth it.
Our Thermomix is in use everyday, and we love it, but it's not a device for the clueless or careless. Thermomix food is like any other food, the quality is entirely down to the recipe and person cooking it.
I have a lot of questions about how it might work, but above all else I'm absolutely in awe of what MechanicalChef can already do! Truly amazing automation, and I can see how this could directly benefit…nearly everyone. I wish your friend success with this (and many delicious meals too)
My system looks like it was put together by a drunk person. That is somewhat true.