Bar bots, or robotized bartenders, are a fun feature of events in our community, because there’s nothing like a cocktail untouched by human hand. Usually they have a row of bottles and a slide on which you put the glass, but [SecurityWriter] relates a tale of an altogether much grander affair. Given a weekend with a group of friends and an enterprise-grade IBM tape library robot, they did what any sensible engineer would do. They turned it into a bar bot.
Most readers probably won’t have seen a consumer grade data tape for decades, but in the enterprise space they’re very much the most cost effective backup solution. Large corporations have vast numbers of them, and IBM sells robots which retrieve them automatically from huge storage racks. When a group of young techs were given the tedious task of cataloging the whole thing and found themselves stuck in an empty data center for a weekend, of course they produced what was probably the world’s most expensive automated drinking game. Stocking the shelving system with booze and using the command line control for the robot they were able to have it deliver their beverages, and shockingly they managed to do so without the whole thing breaking.
It’s a hack, even if it’s one of which by necessity no evidence remains. Sadly Hackaday doesn’t have a tape library, or you can bet we’d be tempted to give it a try ourselves. Never mind, we can continue to sample more conventional bar bots from time to time.
This is my barbot that holds up to 12 bottles and has a touchscreen and uses only 2 steppers and end stop switches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYPOGQ7yaeM
Nice !
We have two of these (TS3500) waiting for recycling … I will challenge my colleagues to make a good use for them !
Thanks for pointing this :)
Pretty sure Las Vegas has more expensive alcohol robots for serving up very specific liquids. In more ways than one if you want to be really specific since, well, it’s Las Vegas. But look up automated cocktail machines and what is driving some of the technological changes there.
“MGM Resorts is in the first phase of a massive cost-cutting initiative, MGM 2020. The goal is to save $300 million, with $100 million of that coming from savings on labor costs.”
MGM 2020 is a “company-wide, business-optimization initiative aimed to leverage a more centralized organization to maximize profitability and, through key investments in technology, lay the groundwork for the company’s digital transformation to drive revenue growth.”
In short, pay people less and still dispense very accurate alcohol volumes so profits go up and employee costs go down.
I guess it helps that bartenders sort of inadvertently sanitize their hands, well, regularly? Do bartenders ever wear gloves, despite sort of being involved with food and beverages?
I hope the robots take their time. Nothing’s better than waiting ten minutes for your drink because the idiot in front of you ordered a cocktail.