Planet Arduino

It’s the end of the academic semester for many students around the globe, so here comes the flurry of DIY projects. Always a great time to check out all the cool hacks from our readers all over the world. One project that piques our interest comes courtesy of [Jason Ummel] and his Auto-Bartender.

[Jason] developed this project as a part of his robotics class taught by Professor Martinez, one of our friends at FlexiLab. Powered by one of our favorite microcontrollers, the ATmega328, the Auto-Bartender is driven by a single 12 V motor coupled with 10 individual valves for separate drinks. Drinks are pumped into a cup sitting on top of a scale, allowing the device to know how much of each drink has been dispensed. The entire setup is controlled using a smartphone application developed in MIT App Inventor, a super-easy way to prototype Android applications.

Furthermore, [Jason] incorporated a number of user-centered design considerations into his project. These include an LCD to display updates, a green LED to indicate the device is in progress, and a buzzer to let the user know the drink is complete.

We really like the combination of craftsmanship, electronics hardware design, and software development that [Jason] put into his project. It’s the kind of project we know our readers will enjoy.

It looks like Jason substituted tap water for Whiskey and Dr. Pepper for his demo. Not exactly what we had in mind, but I guess he still has exams to finish.

Cool project [Jason]! We can’t wait to see Auto-Bartender on Hackaday.io.

Bottoms up!

Combining an Android app with some fluid pumps, an infinity mirror, and a whole lot of booze — let us introduce BarT — the Automated Bartender.

It’s the work of [dosko27] for his senior design project in Electrical Engineering. It’s an automated and wireless drink mixology system. Since it’s for school, the demonstration video doesn’t have any “hard drinks” but the ingredients (up to sixteen) are completely up to you.

He started off with the case. It’s your standard infinity mirror build, a mirror, a 1-way mirror, and some programmable RGB LEDs. We covered a great build tutorial on how to make your own a few years ago. Unlike most automated bar units, [dosko27] opted for a simple, yet elegant design hiding all the electronics. One small LCD to name your drink, and one small spot to stick your cup.

He designed a custom PCB bank of solenoid drivers to control the valves on each ingredient. The trickiest (and most expensive) part with most of these builds is a pump for every ingredient — so instead, he’s using a CO2 supply to pressurize the bottles. This cuts the cost of the build, although you will have to supply CO2 now.

For more great barbot builds, check out the Roboxotica festival in Vienna for some inspiration for your next robotic bartender build!

After five weekends of work, [Alex] completed his automatic drink maker, the RumBot. What makes this automated bartender different from others is the fact that it is fast. VERY fast. It can serve drinks to five different locations in as little as 3 seconds per drink. By [Alex]‘s estimation, this could keep a party of 100 people going without anyone waiting on a drink.

The RumBot can make either of five pre-programmed drinks at varying levels of alcoholic intensity, ranging from 1 (“Virgin”) to 10. And for that extra push over the cliff, you can turn the knob to 11 (“Problem”).

Drink selection itself is handled by a simple digital I/O on an Arduino with a 1950s-styled user interface. The frame is built out of wood and uses 3D Printed plastic parts. It houses a very robust servo on a belt screw-driven stage to move the drink nozzle, and special sensors placed at either of the five drink locations detect a cup ready to be filled. Any cup placed at any of the positions will automatically be filled based on the RumBot’s settings at any particular time.

Based on the quality of the build and the increased speed of this automatic drink maker, this should be a huge hit at any party. With all the knobs turned to 11 though, it might be a good idea to have a breathalyzer on hand! All of the code and schematics for the project are available at the project site as well.