A super-cool robotic bartender inspired by Blade Runner's Voight-Kampff machine? With an ordering menu screen that shows old Japanese whisky ad starring Orson Welles (giving a "dash of Tokyo-dystopian-future-retro weirdness")?
Yes! Enter the VK-01 Off-World Bartender.
Its creator, Donald Bell of Maker Project Lab, explains:
The year is 2040, and you could use a good drink. People say the best drinks are made in the off-world colonies, by robot bartenders programmed only to serve the elite. Lucky for you, one of those robot bartenders never made it off-world. If you can make it past its security system, you’ll be drinking like an outer space aristocrat.
That’s the concept behind the VK-01 off-world bartender, my Blade Runner-inspired cocktail machine. This machine was my second entry into the Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge, an annual event in San Francisco where machines are judged on their ingenuity, popularity, and the quality of their drinks.
It’s one of my favorite events. It’s like a Maker Faire without the kids, where every exhibit dispenses alcohol. Sadly, this year it was canceled for COVID. But by the time I heard about the cancellation, I was too deep into this build to give up. I figured, at least it’ll make a good Instructable! So here we are.
Over at Instructables, he shares how he made it using two Raspberry Pi computers, three Arduino boards, booze, lots of know-how and more.
