Electronics

The Inebriator: An Arduino-powered robot bartender

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The Inebriator robot bartender ready and waiting to serve cocktails
The Inebriator robot bartender ready and waiting to serve cocktails
The Inebriator drink selector
The Inebriator during construction
The Inebriator is powered by an Arduino
The Inebriator circuitry hidden out of sight
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Imagine having your own personal bartender ever-present in your home just waiting to be given the instruction to produce a cocktail of your choosing. While employing a dedicated bartender to be on hand 24/7 is the exclusive domain of the rich, a robot bartender doesn't have to be. Especially for those with a little passion and dedication – oh, and the technical know-how to build one out from the humble beginnings of an Arduino board. This is exactly what a group of amateur engineers have done with the Inebriator.

The Inebriator is designed very simply, with bottles lined up upside-down and optics providing set measures. The user places their glass on a pedestal and selects their drink of choice on the display at the front of the unit. The pedestal then moves along collecting the right spirits as it goes thanks to motors pushing the glass upwards at the appropriate moments. Finally it adds the mixers, connected as and when needed by nitrogen-pressurized tubes to deliver the final touches to the cocktails from a cooler located out of sight.

The Inebriator circuitry hidden out of sight

This project was existing in a vacuum with barely any coverage until a thread discussing it was started on Reddit. Since then people have weighed in with their thoughts on what would and wouldn't be possible, and what should and shouldn't be added, to make the Inebriator an even better prospect than it is already. An obvious suggestion that kept cropping up is an ice hopper and stirring mechanism, which will be explored as the guys behind the device develop a better version of their robot bartender.

This isn't the first robot bartender we've seen here on Gizmag, but while Barkeeper was an attempt to actually create a robotic version of a bartender complete with conversational skills and a catalog of corny jokes, the Inebriator removes all traces of human interaction and instead acts as a dumb waiter for drinks, forging cocktails to order.

The Inebriator is, at present, just a homemade project, but don't be surprised if this, or something very similar to this, is mixing drinks at your local bar at some point in the future.

The video below shows The Inebriator in action, mixing a cocktail with zero effort.

Source: The Inebriator via Reddit

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5 comments
HyunWoo Park
Simple but good application.
Bryan Paschke
pretty well done, but I think I've seen this kind of thing on instructables before.....though usually they use peristaltic pumps and stepper motors to do their measurement.
Marc Tozzo
I know what I want for Christmas!
Charles Bosse
I think that it would be great to have this at a bar where you could order off a tablet. You could even have a combination of face recognition and a breathalyzer to monitor the patrons.
Rich Mansfield
If it could link with the myriad recipes on the internet, and filter for available ingredients, it would be an awesome addition to the home of the future. Wet bar, shmetbar!