I love that we live in a world where a robot just made me a cocktail. OK technically it was a mock-tail, but still, the robot just made a drink, from a combination of liquids, after I selected a drink from the menu on a touchscreen.
The company wasn’t after funding or even concerned with brand awareness, it seemed they just wanted to put on a good time for attendees and I’m glad they did.
Now if you’re currently pouring cocktails and are concerned you’re the next career to end up on the high-tech chopping block, don’t fear these aren’t purchasable (by bar owners) simply available for hire at events due to the cost.
The system takes a bit to setup. Firstly the drinks available to pour have to be entered into the robot’s computer to filter the possible drinks available to users. There’s also no automatic cup refill in this version, so humans are at least still needed for that. What’s perhaps the most impressive part of the robot is its unique attachment system to ensure the bottles are securely picked up, important given they need to be rotated upside down.
You’ll see in the video below that this robot works pretty slowly and when I inquired if we can turn it up to 11.. I was told it is capable of moving much faster (potentially faster than a barman), but given we’re in a live environment and there’s no safety shields, they have to run it slowly. Humans do weird things like try and touch a moving robot, so I can understand the safety aspect. Still it would have been great to see a robot knock out a cocktail made up of 4-5 different liquids in under 10 seconds.
The recipies are obviously tested thoroughly, but mine was definitely enjoyable.
The robot is made by a company called https://www.kuka.com who does industrial implementations of robots for high-end automation or production lines. Basically this is a fun thing on the side of a very serious business.
