Kickstarter for a cocktail-dispensing robot

Robert Kaye sez, "Among the many standout cocktail-pouring robots on display this weekend at BarBot in San Francisco was Bartendro, the latest creation by Robert Kaye and Pierre Michael of Party Robotics. (They're also the creators of the Water to Wine watercooler gag featured recently on Make.) If you've ever wanted an open source robot to help you refine your recipe for the perfect margarita, or needed an extra hand serving drinks at a party, they've now launched a Kickstarter for the first production run of Bartendro. The duo also released the source code and hardware designs to their creation on Github for hackers to improve upon the design or create something new. As a Kickstarter backer, you can get a finished bot in a variety of sizes, or just the parts to try your hand at a different enclosure, or make your own custom dispenser for reef tank chemicals, epoxy, pancake batter, or almost any liquid."

Bartendro - A Cocktail Dispensing Robot (Thanks, Robert!)

• [Doran]

  Wait! This isn’t a thing yet? We as a people have obviously misplaced our priorities.

  • [rrh]

    I’ve seen a similar thing years ago. It was just a one-off from a guy who makes robotic installations. But instead of built-in recipes it would create a drink by randomly mixing things, so most of them were pretty bad.

• [oneswellfoop]

  The recipe for the perfect margarita is going to change constantly based on the particular fruit you use in the sour mix.  I don’t go to bars where the bartenders pour me an exact, standard shot, why on earth would I want a robot to do that for me instead?

  Show me a machine that you say can make a perfect sazerac and I’ll call you a liar.  There are some things better done by hand.

  • [DavidCulberson]

     Exactly; “sour mix” is not an ingredient, it’s a compound of fruit juices.  Anybody using a bottle of “sour mix” is not making a good margarita, and it’s a waste of good tequila.

    A bar bot is a neat novelty but it’s not a way to get good drinks.  Cory, I would compare it to an Aeropress versus a superautomatic coffee maker.  You can get “okay” coffee out of the superauto machine, but it’s kind of a waste of good coffee and you’re way better served by using the Aeropress.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    A margarita is tequila, fresh lime juice and Cointreau.  What is this sour mix of which you speak?

    • [DavidCulberson]

       I like a little fresh lemon juice or orange juice in addition to the lime juice; the combo of lemon and lime juice is known as “sour mix.”  Lame margaritas contain bottled sour mix that’s 90% high fructose corn syrup and 10% fake juices.

• [Logolepsy]

  Finally! I’ve been wanting one of these since I read “L’Écume des Jours” by Boris Vian, which featured the “pianocktail” (a piano that turned pieces of music into drinks).

• [Andy Reilly]

  I can see using this for lots of tasks. But making cocktails won’t be one of them for me.

• [Tom Ames]

  Meters precise volumes of well liquor into a glass for you to stir with your finger. Blech.

• [NynjaSquirrel]

  Odd, I thought these were already a ‘thing’:

  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/stephen-fry-gadget-man/articles/ep4-cocktails-for-you

• [Paul Renault]

  Prior art: A few manufacturers of photofinishing equipment had stand-alone machines which could automatically mix photofinishing chemicals from concentrates.  (Yes, a few had them built in to the processor.)

  For one of the trade shows, one manufacturer, Kreonite, rigged up one of their models (the name of the model escapes me) to mix and dispense screwdrivers, bloody marys, and some other drink. 

  My service manuals for that manufacturer have long ago been turned into paper pulp, so I dodn’t remember the model’s name or the exact year, but it was later 1983 or early 1984.  I recall that it ran on a Z80 processor, one of the precursors of the 8086..

• [bingo]

  You don’t need a cocktail-prepping robot to “dial in” the hideous beverages listed on their kickstarter site–all brown cows and buttery nipples.  ugh.  someone should really think through the logistics of having creamy liquids in the line for several days at a time or weeks at a time as well.  decent idea, but poorly thought out here.  peristaltic pumps are slow but accurate-a decent at-home bartending aficionado is better.

  • [jandrese]

    My thought was that you would need to have some sort of self cleaning mechanism attached that would flush the lines out with water after each shot, or you’re going to get lots of cross contamination of your drinks.

    I’m not too worried about leaving the creme based drinks in the line though, since that doesn’t seem much different than leaving them in the bottle.  It’s not like they’ll be exposed to air and you don’t have to refrigerate most of those bottles.  The alcohol content also does a good job of retarding the growth of any contaminants. 

• [David Hathaway]

  Impressively over engineered but measuring out the booze is the easy bit. Mixing it nicely is the hard part. Can’t see any shake with ice going on… where is the umbrellas  the twist of peal? The razzel dazzel glitz and glamour. Plus it looks ugly and oversized.

• [elizabethmolin]

  Does anyone remember a humorous sf short story (from the 50s? 60s?) about a robot bartender? I’ve been trying to remember the name of the author. Email me if you know: [e-mail]. Many thanks!

  • [Bill Altreuter]

     The Proud Robot: http://www.amazon.com/The-Proud-Robot-ebook/dp/B0073V0630

    • [elizabethmolin]

       THANK YOU! That’s the one. Now if I could just remember the name of the anthology it was in…

• [Dave Pease]

  party robotics: excelling at parties, excelling at robotics, excelling at talking about themselves in third person.

• [Tribune]

  when do they add the r2d2 platform?

• [Jimmy Virani]

  there’s already a few versions of the Piano Cocktail, such as Boris Vian intented it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3enFXrVf3k

• [Swartzkip]

  There is a bar robot in in a local bar here:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0qCZhpw1lto

• [Bradley Robinson]

  Does it provide hours of witty banter, tell bad jokes, call me a cab, have cleavage, or wear provocative attire?

  If not, I’ll just stick with analog, thanks.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Does it… have cleavage, or wear provocative attire?

    Like this?

    • [Bradley Robinson]

      Perhaps. 

      Depends on the bar.  Or the patron.  Or the mood.