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Tender robots "We already make your car ... let us make your drink!" By Camper English› camper@cramper.com While you've been sitting lazily on your bar stool, complaining about the high price of Jägermeister, the good people at the Motoman corporation (a division of Yaskawa Manufacturing) have adapted high-end industrial technology to create a kinder, gentler, more awesome application — a robot bartender! The magnificent RoboBar comes in a self-contained gazebo with slots for wine, beer, soda, and liquor. The UPJ dual-arm robot (with a compact NXC100 controller, even) is actually two hand clamps, a swiveling torso wearing a tuxedo, and an optional computer screen for a head. RoboBar isn't quite Tron Collins, but it gets the job done. It's a robot, and it mixes cocktails, and that, friends, is progress. The RoboBar has a customizable personality so you can pick just the kind of bartender you want. Personality options are not described on the Motoman Web site, but I assume they cover all the main bartender archetypes: surly and standoffish, friendly and drunk, dangerous and sexy, and perky and cute. I think that last personality is what they're aiming for with the face and recorded voice in RoboBar's demo videos (viewable on the Web site), but they really didn't nail it. "She" looks like a bottle-blond accountant from Goldman Sachs and sounds like a student with a head cold answering a question on dentistry. Robot Lady says, "If I wasn't bolted to the floor, I'd go home with you tonight!" with all the emotion of "Now I'm going to insert this tube into your trachea." Not sexy. There are several other reasons to suspect Motoman's more popular arc-welding robots manufactured these bartending robots to sling oil at the Lubricant Tavern in the company food court but then decided their business model was extendable into the R2C marketplace. Motoman suspiciously brags about the accounting advantages (exact pours for better inventory control, only 30 cents an hour of electricity) and the benefits of dehumanization (no sick time, breaks, or spillage, and "RoboBar is never tempted to take some off the top"). And the marketing copy is about as dry and robot-generated as you can get. The product's slogan: "We already make your car ... let us make your drink!" Drinking and driving — now that's a selling point. Whether it's the bastard hell-spawn of the Motoman HP3L line of laser-cutting robot or was created by a kindly inventor with a heart of gold, I want to believe that if you program RoboBar to accept your nurturing devotion, you can teach it not only to pour you a double but also to understand the language of LOVE++. My bartender will be named Milo, and he will be more than my liquor dispenser; he'll be my best friend. Oh, the times we'll have! Milo and I will talk for hours on end, and he'll never interrupt me or tell me to shut up like those other bartenders. He'll listen to me without scrolling his eyes, and he'll never cut me off when I repeat the story about what happened after I ate a dozen doughnuts. (He'll love that story!) He also won't waste time lecturing me about my drinking "problem" that sometimes leads to "violence" and "arrest." And he'll never kick me out of the bar at 2 a.m. That's the advantage of robot home-ownership! (I know ownership is an ugly word, but let's be honest: I'll be a slave to his piña coladas!) Milo won't care if I get a beer belly, because he's my enabler. I'll help him get rid of viruses, and he'll help me get rid of my liver. He'll know just how I like my martinis: ice-cold, with a null pointer's worth of vermouth. He'll be a great party cohost too. I'll make the snacks, and he'll take care of the drinks! And I've already planned our matching Halloween costumes: I'll replace his detachable monitor-face with a jack-o'-lantern and scare the neighbor kids as he pours cups of Jesus juice into their candy bags. Headless bartender, you're hilarious! Sure, RoboBar's mean-time between-failure is more than 60,000 hours, and therefore he'll require only cursory maintenance, and yes, his two manipulator arms each have five axes of motion. But I'm going to input some e-motion and hope my tender RoboBar serves me a cup of his sweet, sweet love. * |
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