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Robot Bartender Does a Dance, Mixes and Pours a '10' Cocktail

Cocktail Waiters Are Less Human Than They Used To Be

Video by Emily Verdouw

Meet the robot bartender that can dance, take an order like a pro and mix and pour a 10/10 cocktail.

The cocktail-making machine Bot Bar 2.0 was one of the highlights of Sydney University’s Fabricating Futures: Robots, Research, Design exhibition displaying the work of the university's architecture and design students, researchers and staff as part of Sydney Design 2015.

While it probably won’t listen if you start telling it your problems, selecting one of 26 cocktails from an iPad jolts Bot Bar to life and sends it grabbing for a cocktail shaker, grog and mixers.

“It waits a little bit, it dances, then it puts the lid on and does a really nice shake,” Bot Bar communications programmer Susana Alarcon told The Huffington Post Australia.

Off comes the lid and Bot Bar pours you the drink.

“It’s a bit of a novelty but the idea is we’re using it as a learning tool to learn about the robots and work out how we can apply that to other things,” said Bot Bar's motion programmer Samantha Horlyck.

First introduced at the University showcase in 2014, the Bot Bar has since been upgraded with automatic turntables, synchronised liquid pumps and the iPad interface.

The next step is to add sensors for more advanced interactions.

But if you’re paying your way through uni by working behind a bar, don’t be too alarmed.

Bot Bar likely won’t be forcing you out of the job anytime soon, said Marjo Niemelä, Fabricating Futures curator and Manager of the The Design, Modelling and Fabrication Lab at Sydney Uni.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there started to be more robotic cocktail bars, but we’re nowhere near replacing humans,” she said.

And how are the cocktails?

“Oh, a 10,” said Alarcon.

Hundreds of complex architectural models, digitally developed interactive prototypes, lighting and object designs, robotic ideas and innovative research will be on show at the exhibition until Sunday.

Fabricating Futures is a precursor event to the international ROB|Arch 2016 conference, hosted by the University of Sydney in March next year.

This story was originally published on September 14, 2015.

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