Pi MixMakr Is a Robotic Bartender That’ll Keep the Cocktails Coming Through Quarantine
While it can’t help the social isolation of this pandemic, the Pi MixMakr can serve your drink like a robotic version of your bartender.
The coronavirus pandemic continues, and you probably can’t go out to bars right now. Even if bars are open where you live, it’s probably smart to avoid them for the time being. That can feel very frustrating to those of us who enjoy a nice adult beverage. Grabbing a beer from your refrigerator just doesn’t feel the same as paying three times as much for it at your local watering hole. While it can’t do much about the social isolation of this pandemic, the Pi MixMakr can serve your cocktails like a robotic version of your favorite bartender.
We’ve actually featured a number of automated bartending systems here on Hackster, and each has their own unique style and mechanical design. The Pi MixMakr has a particularly attractive design based around a minimalist wood box with most of the mechanical components tucked away out of sight. Five standard size liquor or mixer bottles are lined up on top of the box. Inside of the box a cocktail glass rests on a small platform that can slide back and forth horizontally in the box. When a drink is requested, the glass is moved underneath the appropriate bottles so that liquor and mixers can be dispensed.
As the name suggests, the Pi MixMakr is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 3. Soda pumps are used to dispense the liquor, and a stepper motor is used to slide the cocktail glass platform back and forth. Reed contact switches are used to position the glass underneath each bottle. A force sensitive resistor (FSR) detects when a glass has been placed on the platform. An Adafruit NeoPixel ring lights up underneath the glass to provide some appealing illumination.
Drinks can be ordered through a website built on Vue and Laravel. A single drink recipe contains the various liquor and mixer measurements, and those are sent to the Raspberry Pi when a drink is requested. A Python script handles the actual motor and dispenser commands. As any bartender knows, cleanliness is an important matter and the Pi MixMakr currently needs to be sanitized manually. Some improvements may be made in the future, but the project is open source so you can tinker with it yourself to build the perfect robotic bartender for your home.