
‘First Robotic Bar Experience in the World’ Heads to the Las Vegas Strip - prostoalex
http://vegas.eater.com/2017/3/6/14824690/first-robotic-bar-experience-in-the-world-to-las-vegas-strip
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ransom1538
WHY ARMS? Why not just hook up a 30 hoses to bottles, add a shaker, a decent
ice dispenser AND have it pour into a damn glass. Done. Use a massive screen
with 100 drinks + games (sometimes you win doubles etc). Walk into mc donalds
they already do this (one nozzle for 20 drinks).

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hipsterelitist
Showmanship/Entertainment. The whole point of being in Vegas or on a cruise
ship (prior installation), is to have a spectacular experience. An efficient,
mundane, McD's dispenser isn't quite the same.

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toomuchtodo
> The whole point of being in Vegas or on a cruise ship (prior installation)

My best friend works on RCCL's Quantum (or rather, its one of the ships he's
worked on recently), and one of his responsibilities is maintenance of the
robotic arms that perform the drink making experience [1]. He's says they're
constantly down or in need of major repair while operating.

Will robotics get there? For sure. Are they there yet? Not in a cost effective
manner. Still cheaper to have someone making tips behind the bar (unless, as
you said, its purely showmanship).

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBF7EE2xnN4)

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MegaButts
Any idea what it costs?

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toomuchtodo
I don't unfortunately, I'm just told they're constantly down for maintenance.
A typical new robotic arm is ~$80k-$150k (varies widely based on implements,
programming, etc); unsure of the exact model RCCL uses, but even at the low
end the install cost ~$200k considering equipment costs + tech labor on board.

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clusmore
I instantly thought of this video snippet [1] from the 80s about a robot
bartender, which incidentally I only know from the Mitch Murder song "In the
News." [2]

> _Finally, the last place you want to see a computer let alone a robot is in
> your neighborhood bar. Yet it seems the sweep of technology has no limits.
> In San Francisco this week, the world 's first robot bartender was unveiled.
> The robot can talk, can take spoken orders and can mix two-hundred different
> drinks. But on the first test run, when the waitress yelled out "Give me a
> Bloody Mary and a beer," the robot knocked the glass off the bar onto the
> floor and poured beer all over the counter. The robot's designer said there
> were still some bugs to be worked out._

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdRH9Sm_4-0&t=28m12s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdRH9Sm_4-0&t=28m12s)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz7rK3Eks4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz7rK3Eks4s)

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MegaButts
Reminds me of this.
[http://i.imgur.com/tpqNUAd.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/tpqNUAd.gifv)

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sehugg
I still miss the Star Trek bar in the Hilton:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Experience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Experience)

(and there was almost a giant Enterprise, too!
[http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/lifesize-replica-
ente...](http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/lifesize-replica-enterprise-
built-vegas.html))

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jburgess777
A simpler version of the same idea has been implemented before, eg. the
Nottinghack BarBot
[https://youtu.be/20SI1o-t1F4](https://youtu.be/20SI1o-t1F4)

When they demoed it at EMF camp 2014 they had a mobile interface where you
could select from a menu of cocktails and thet you waited in a queue for it to
be made.

Some more details of the design can be found at
[https://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Project:BarBot](https://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Project:BarBot)

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MichaelApproved
Yes, please put this everywhere. At least one bar in all bars.

I'm so tired of waiting to get the attention of the bar tender. It's not the
fault of the bar tender. In so many places they are horribly understaffed.

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kylestlb
There's a bar in Santa Cruz that gives you an RFID bracelet hooked up to your
CC, and you pour however much you want from >30 taps on the wall. Then you pay
your per-ounce tab upon exit. Only beer and wine but a cool idea. Here's a
link: [http://www.pourtaproom.com/santa-
cruz/](http://www.pourtaproom.com/santa-cruz/)

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Karunamon
A local brewery (Accomplice Beer Company) just opened that does something
identical, just with an RFID card that you plop on a stand above the tap
rather than a bracelet. Wouldn't surprise me to learn they're using the same
hardware.

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sandworm101
They already exist. They are called vending machines. Instead of a pushbutton
these have a voice interface. Big deal. All the robot parts beyond the vending
machine are just for show. If you like the show, cool. But dont expect this to
reduce costs. The market has rejected vending machines in bars for good
reasons.

Can this machine do the legal part of the job? Does it know when to cut
someone off or call the cops? Can it spot a fake ID? Bartending as a
profession isnt under any threat.

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prawn
Could have one attendant supervising 2-3 vending machines in a busy venue. In
supermarkets in Australia, one attendant supervises 6-8 automated checkouts
and it works well.

If not vending machines, at least separate the expensive cocktail mixing from
the beer and wine orders. It's painful waiting to order a round of bottled
beers when the person just in front of you wants 5 random cocktails.

There are bars in Europe where each table has its own beer tap in the middle,
and you are charged by volume poured. Nice gimmick.

~~~
sandworm101
The people who want complicated drinks also tend to like complicated coffee.
It isnt about the drink. Its about getting someone to listen to your complex
order and then getting ti b-tch about it when they make a mistake. Add a robot
and that scheme dissapears.

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cblock811
tldr from my pervious experience managing bars: neat idea but it wont fly from
what I saw.

First, these robots are WAY too slow. A more efficient mechanism than those
arms is sorely needed. A good bartender on a busy night can make ~100 drinks
an hour (not at a bar with lots of complicated drinks). There is no way these
are going to keep up.

Handling an issue with the machine means at least having someone there to
troubleshoot but also likely means having a human bartender on staff anyways.
If it breaks somehow you have a large decoration I guess but more likely an
angry bartender with no backup.

Also the space these would take up is prohibitive to most restaurants.
Bartenders will need space to move back and forth around their bar, stock
items, etc. If they are sharing the bar with a robot I hope they aren't
pulling from the same stock because they will both want to make cocktails from
the same ingredients, which would be entertaining to watch at least. Humans
can navigate that blockage more easily: "Hey I need 6 gin and tonics and two
rum and cokes" vs a queue where those orders may be mixed up. Knowing how to
manage that takes more than simple grouping.

I could write a lot more about

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Baeocystin
> A good bartender on a busy night can make ~100 drinks an hour

The article states they're good for 120 drinks/hour. FWIW.

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cblock811
I must have overlooked that. Thanks for pointing that out.

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ssimoni
This soon-to-be Vegas robot looks cool! In the meantime, if you want to try a
robot server in San Francisco, my friends and I installed one in Folsom Street
Foundry in SOMA. The bartender still makes the drinks but loads the Robot
which brings it to the tables. If you are interested, check out the youtube
video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bab7E1Da6WA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bab7E1Da6WA)

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themark
How did this get by all of the union regulations in Vegas?

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cbanek
I can't wait until Senor Frog's gets a robot that can just pour the liquor in
my mouth like the real bartenders do.

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farnsworth
Seriously though, I bet eventually we'll have a robot that can do that far
more accurately than a human. Like a jet from one of those 'jumping
fountains', of liquor, 20 feet away, nothing but net.

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smelendez
I wonder what it takes to make this legal--I've been to corporate events with
free beer and perhaps wine where there's still a bartender, presumably for
legal reasons.

It seems like there may be a reason robot bars first launched at sea.

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acchow
Robotic arms to draw liquids from bottles? Seems excessive.

Why not just use tubes?

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joe_the_user
If you wanted efficiency, you could drink at home.

A bar tender is a combination entertainer-crowd-controller.

This a robotic/novelty emulation of a bar tender. Once the novelty wears off,
they'll have to be much entertaining.

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kylestlb
Autodesk had this at their yearly conference a few years ago. It's pretty
neat, but of course only one of the arms was working when I tried to get a
drink!

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alex-
Can't help but think the conveyor belt that presents the drink is there to
keep you a safe distance should the controller go unstable.

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eddyg
There is an invisible "sensor curtain" around the robots. I accidentally put
my camera too far "in" and the robots stopped instantly. As soon as the
attendant saw everything was OK (and helpfully explained to me what happened)
she pushed a "resume" button on the control panel and they continued right
where they left off.

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fuzzythinker
Nice, no need to do the meaningless tipping.

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SilasX
What optimism! Keep in mind, they'll put out tip jars at self service froyo
places if it will dupe someone into think it's expected.

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kevinSuttle
[Star Wars cantina scene]

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coss
Looks slow?

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MichaelApproved
It's hard to tell because they kept having cuts and slowmo. It would be nice
to see a video of a full drink being made.

Still, even a slow robot is preferred to having to wait for attention from the
bartender before putting in your order. It's so frustrating to have to break
away from an interesting conversation so that you could keep your eye on the
bartender as he/she slowly makes their way to your area of the bar.

I'm at a bar to socialize, not to wait several minutes away from my friends
trying to make eye contact with the bartender.

