Barbots are a popular project around these parts. With a few pumps and a microcontroller or two, it’s possible to build something that can approximate mixing a drink. If you’ve got the patience and attention to detail, you can probably even get it to the point where it doesn’t just end up as a leaking wet mess on your mantlepiece. [Robert] has taken his build a step further by adding mind control.
To achieve this feat, a Mindflex EEG headset is pressed into service. This picks up brainwaves from the user, and processes them into two output values of concentration and meditation. Through some careful hacking, it’s possible to retrieve these values. [Robert] sends the values over Bluetooth to the barbot controller for processing. Concentration values over a certain threshold are used to cycle through the drink selection, while meditation values are used to confirm the order. Once it’s made, a voice command to “hit me” will see the drink served.
It’s a tidy build that adds a bit of fun to an already cool project. We’d love to see this taken up several levels of complexity to the point where you can directly order the drink you want, just by the power of thought. If your university-grade research project is at that level, be sure to let us know. Else, if you’re interested in how the barbot came to be, check out [Robert]’s earlier work.
And it always serves a liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
i could see this becoming a feedback loop where the drunker you get the more drinks you order
might be hard to achieve the concentration threshold after a few…
Yea, I have one that pours when you die in Doom, but it would be great to control some games with the EEG too – now that I can feed in the values. Mario kart but using meditation to go forward, and then pouring drinks every time you get hit etc. Shame I just have the one mindflex
Turning the mindflex around, to have the electrode at the back of your head, you can achieve some basic SSVEP interfaces , that potentially would allow for more precise and easier control.
The idea would be having all bottles blinking at various frequencies, and then trying to extract those known frequencies from brain activity to figure out which one you’re concentrating on.
A P300 keyboard type interface, with blinking cols and rows could also work with jsut one electorde.
OpenVibe will have you covered if you want to mess around with prototypes.