News: 9/11: Made the front page of hackaday! Very cool. I’m a big fan of their site, so it’s an honor to be listed on their front page. Check it out here.
9/10: Website is online. Videos are up as well. More videos will be added soon. More pictures will be added soon. Thanks for all of your support.
In 2007, a group of engineering students got together to form a robotics group for a senior design project at UC Santa Cruz. Since graduation, it has become a tradition that we build a robot for each other’s wedding ceremony or reception.
In 2008, we built a robotic flower girl (B.F.G. Big Flower Girl) for Rachel’s wedding.
This year, for Sean and Christen’s wedding, we decided to build a mixed drink dispensing robot.
B.E.N.D.E.R., the BananaSlug Engineered Nuptial Drink Emitting Robot, is a mixed drink pouring machine capable of mixing up to 8 different ingredients. However, in order to place an order with the robot, you are first required to leave a 30 second congratulations video for the bride and groom.
After you have left your video, you then place your glass into the robotic hand. It will move your cup from station to station, pouring exact amounts of each of the ingredients required for your drink into your cup.
B.E.N.D.E.R. has a tablet interface, providing ease of use for the end user. It also gives us easy access to adminstrative tasks. The end result videos are stored on the tablet for the couple to look at later.
Thank you for visiting the page. We are going to keep the design as open source as possible, and will be providing as many CAD files as we possibly can.
Amazing! I’m so proud of you and your awesome friends!
You should include a random drink button, for those who get intoxicated and can no longer make a decision on their next drink.
@Ben, that’s called the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Version 2.0 should have it.
Awesome
Wait, who gets version 2.0? I agree with Laura, very impressed and proud. I love the “wedding = robot” tradition!
Andrew, this is pure genius! Now you just need to invent the fing-longer so people can use it from their seats.
Fantabulous! Yes, please include your BOM. I love those solenoid valves!
How do you control the portions -flow meters?
@Roger, I will attach a BOM soon. The solenoid valves were purchased from a San Diego company called valves4projects. I got them from their eBay store. Portions are controlled via a timer. We found that timing it was accurate enough for us. However, with timers, carbonated drinks don’t work as well. I think we can simply define each valves timer with a #define.
hi andrew
can you tell as the model of the valves you used
@Yaniv, Sure, we used the echotech gravity feed solenoid valves, 1/4″. These are from Valves4Projects, a company based in San Diego that sells primarily through eBay. Just eBay search gravity feed solenoid valves for their store.
How do you get the bottles in without spilling?
@Dan, The air return comes from a big hole cut into the “top” of the bottles (actually the bottom of the bottles when they are sat up-right).
So, we screw the bottles into place, place a funnel into the top of each bottle, and pour in our liquid. To dispense, our tablet admin screen has a “cleaning” mode where we can just constantly dispense liquid in a specific valve.
@andrew Very cool! Thanks for the info. Also wondering how you connected the tablet to the device? Did you some how open a serial port with the Android or use WiFi and SSH?
Thanks for the info!
I believe the ADK uses an open serial port. The tablet has a micro USB cable that connects to the ADK. The ADK is not a standard arduino. It is an arduino specifically made to interface with an Android device. Google “Arduino ADK” for more information.