Barduino, Now With Facebook Integration

May 10, 2014 by 8 Comments

Bar

We’ve seen BarBots that will automagically pour you a drink, but how about one with RFID? How about one with Facebook integration, so your friends know how much of a lush you are? Wait. Facebook already tells them that. Huh.

[Andy] and [Daniel]’s latest build follows on the heels of a lot of similar cocktail bots; an Arduino controls a few solenoid valves connected to a CO2 supply and a few bottles of liquor and mixers that allow drinks to be dispensed at the push of the button. Where this project gets interesting is its use of RFID and Facebook.

The user interface was coded for Windows 7, with an RFID tag (ostensibly issued to each guest) allowing a unique login that checks an SQL server to see what privileges the user has. The app pulls the user’s Facebook profile photo down and displays it in the corner of the screen, and with the server keeping track of how many drinks (and of what kind) they had, with the right permissions it should be possible to post that info to their wall. Because we all know what you did last night, even if you don’t.

Indio Picaro Doll Mixes Drinks…

November 27, 2013 by 11 Comments

pissCO

Ever heard of the Indio Picaro doll? They are those kinda weird phallic statues, and they also happen to be a national joke in Chile. So hackers [Nathan] and [Pablo] decided to make use of its popularity for a hilarious drink serving robot (Translated) at this past weekends Santiago Mini Maker Faire.

Dubbed the PissCO, the bartending robot(s?) make use of eight Bartendro drink pumps, which is a system that was successfully funded on Kickstarter at the beginning of the year. Add some servos to make the little statues dance and swing around their… Anyway the whole system is probably one of the most unique cocktail mixing robots we’ve seen yet.

After all, who doesn’t want a drink served from a stainless steel basin that looks vaguely like a urinal?

Stick around after the break to uh, see it in action.

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Kitchen Hacks: An Android Bartender

November 17, 2011 by 3 Comments

[Nick] just finished up bis barbot build that is named after our favorite bartender. It’s an impressively capable even if it was done on the cheap.

The user chooses a libation for iZac to make via an Android tablet. This drink is interpreted by an Android ADK to have the mechanics of the robot swing into action and start making a drink.

The part of the build that moves the fluid was inspired by the Evil Mad Scientist Labs’ Drink Making Unit 2.0. Instead of pumps pulling the liquid through tubing, [Nick] attached an aquarium air pump to an Erlenmeyer flask. A siphon tube draws liquid out of the flask because of the difference in air pressure. The liquid is controlled by a few laser cut pinch valves that he designed.

Once a user selects a cocktail, the robot swings into action and dispenses liquid into a glass sitting on a load cell. Since the glass is being weighed at all times, iZac knows exactly how much alcohol (and in what proportion) is in the cocktail. [Nick] tested out iZac at the Sydney Hackerspace with soda water and flavoring. iZac proved very popular and we’re wondering if we could build something like this in a liquor cabinet.

The Perfect Beer Every Time

June 18, 2011 by 26 Comments

 

The Pour Master Pro is a beer pouring robot, designed and built by a team of beer/robot lovers as their entry to the Red Bull’s Creation Contest. Pour Master keeps it simple (opposed to some of the other bar bots we have seen), it uses a modified kegerator and tap for the beer, and a few sensors which it uses to maintain its state and pour the perfect beer. The standard tower on the kegerator was replaced with a rack and pinion driven tower constructed using the Vex Robotics Design System, this allows the Pour Master to set its height to the size of any glass using a limit switch and a set of ultrasonic rangefinders.

For a perfect pour the beer must not spill over the side of the glass and needs a decent 3/4″ head, to manage this the Pour Master uses the ultrasonic rangefinder to detect the thickness and height of the head. The entire thing is controlled by an Arduino running a finite state machine which provides state feedback to the user with an LCD display. Check out the video after the break for their competition entry, now all you need is one robot to make the beer and why not another to drink it.

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[Jeri’s] Dress Lights Up When Someone Invades Her Personal Space — Step Back Nerds!

June 1, 2011 by 34 Comments

[Jeri] threw down the geeky fashion gauntlet by building this LED enhanced dress. She chose to assemble the project for her trip to BarBot 2011, and we can’t think of a more appropriate setting for such a garment. It uses a motion sensor to set off a delayed pattern of blue lights hidden underneath the fabric.The best part of the hack is the instamatic camera. It looks like a fashion accessory, but it’s really hiding all of the circuitry for the lights.

Inside the camera a PIR sensor waits until it detects motion, sending a signal through an op-amp to the trigger circuitry. A 74LS14 Schmitt Trigger chip teams up with some resistor-capacitor timer circuits to build a delay chain for the LEDs. This way, after motion is detected the LEDs come on and off in a staggered pattern that doesn’t require a microcontroller and is very pleasing to the eye. See the Analog win for yourself after the break.

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Class Up Your Next Party With The Drink Making Unit 2.0

April 4, 2011 by 7 Comments

drink_making_unit_20

The crew over at [Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories] has been hard at work preparing for the Barbot 2011 cocktail robotic exhibition. This year, they are packing some serious drinking fun with the Drink Making Unit 2.0. The predictably named follow-up to last year’s wildly popular Drink Making Unit doubles the mixing capability with six, rather than three fluids, and provides a visually stimulating drink mixing experience.

While they are similarly named, the new unit has been completely redesigned since last year. No longer are they relying on breast pumps to move the alcohol along. Instead, they are using compressed air to dispense fluids from wash bottles which were constructed from laboratory beakers. The fluids are measured in specially altered graduated cylinders that are designed to tip over and release their contents when the appropriate amount of alcohol has been poured. These cylinders are designed to mimic the movement of Japanese garden fixtures called “deer chasers”, tipping back and forth solely powered by the ingress and egress of liquid.

The dispenser’s control panel houses an ATmega164, which orchestrates the entire operation. It interfaces with the LED driver boards that make up the display via SPI. The micro controller is also tasked with monitoring when the graduated cylinders tip their libations into the dispensing funnel, which is done using IR LEDs and photogates.

It’s a great looking machine, and while there isn’t any drink mixing video as of yet, we can’t wait to see it in action.

Robo-vibe

February 17, 2010 by 16 Comments

What sounds like a sex-toy is actually the reason these musicians haven’t been practicing. Marv is the MIDI actuated robotic vibraphone built by [Tim O’Keefe], [Michael McIntyre], and [Brock Roland]. Every key has a solenoid positioned below it. The beauty here is that other than four small holes used for mounting, the vibraphone hasn’t been altered at all. The solenoids are positioned on the outside edges of the instrument but there’s also a hidden secret. A set of dampers have been installed between the two ranks of keys. These are used to stop dampen ringing keys after the note should have stopped.

These guys have exhibited some beautiful craftsmanship. Check out the videos after the break and if you have the chance, see Marv in person at BarBot 2010. If you do attend that robot extravaganza don’t miss your chance to enjoy a breast-pump actuated cocktail.

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