The Robot Who Makes Cocktails and Moves Like a Ballet Dancer

Posted on May 25 2013 - 9:42am by Thomas Sharp

Who among us can honestly say that they don’t love a good cocktail? From James Bond to Ernest Hemingway, history is filled with people who knew the value of mixing a few basic ingredients together and then drinking the blooming thing.

But what if you don’t know how to mix the perfect martini or mojito? The good news is that help is at hand and that it doesn’t come in the form of a grinning and youthful Tom Cruise throwing bottles about the place willy nilly.

No, what you need to prepare your cocktails is a robot. More specifically, you need Makr Shakr. This is the name of the mechanical drinker mixer being used to prepare cocktails at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.

Create Your Own Cocktails

cocktailThe robot with the bar job has three arms and shakes martinis and cuts up lemons and limes like a real barman. Its realistic movements are based on those made by a chap called Roberto Bolle, who is an American Ballet Theatre dancer. Even better news is the fact that the Makr Shakr robot is linked in to an app which lets thirsty people make up their own cocktail recipes for it to create in front of their eyes.

The project to build this robotic barman was run by the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with support from Coca Cola and Bacardi. Carlos Ratti is a director at the MIT and he said that it is a “great example” of how technology is now being used to change how humans interact with products.  He went on to say that the system is all about the new social experience of “design, make and enjoy”.

Could you imagine this in a bar, or home, near you?

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