The busiest places, other than Disneyland Parks and Justin Bieber concerts, are likely cafés and bars, but technology is about to change that. Robotic baristas and bartenders are becoming a reality, and they probably will be taking your beverage orders in the future. Now, you might have a little skepticism about the combination of expensive electronics and liquids, because we do too. Don’t worry, it’s nothing a couple IT guys can’t fix. They might not be able to fix it just by turning it off and on again though; it’ll require some further troubleshooting. Yanu, a fully autonomous, A.I. powered bartender robot, was developed by Robolab to help crammed nightclubs run more functionally. And then there’s Café X, a full-scale coffee station where customers can order their drinks and watch a robot go through the motions of creating it. Plus, it never misspells your name. Currently, we are unsure of what to do if the robot messes up your drink order, but you definitely won’t receive any annoyed stares when you give it back.
BaristaBot
Nowadays, the process of making a good cup of coffee is already pretty mechanical, despite the obvious human involvement of putting in machine filters, filling them with water, grinding our coffee beans, etc. And we’ve got coffee makers, espresso machines, and cold brewers to help us. But Café X is automating the entire process, drastically changing the average wait time for store coffee from 3-5 minutes down to 10 seconds. They already have three kiosks open in San Francisco, California!
The “barista” inside the of coffee kiosk will process the order placed on the electronic tablets located in front of it or on an app installed by the customer on their phone. Then, this six-axis robotic arm will get to work crafting your drink! Once the robot finishes, it will place the cup in a cubbyhole, which can only be unlocked by the four-digit passcode texted to you. No more mixing up drinks with total strangers! Entrepreneur and Café X creator, Henry Hu, hopes that this automated process “ensures precision, consistency, and quality, and kills margin of error.” Luckily, IT support will have plenty of caffiene to keep them going in case of any malfunctions!
I.D. Please?
Yanu, the bartending robot, is going to become the wingman (well, wing-bot) of all bartenders. The idea is that this robot will help alleviate some of the bartender’s stress by speeding up the process of getting drinks out. This robot can “serve drinks, handle payments, identify and communicate with clients.” The vision that Robolab CEO, Alan Adojaan, has is to create a bar that works faster than the customers can order!
The way Yanu functions is similar to Café X’s barista robot, using a central arm with multiple axis to maneuver around the space creating drinks. Adojaan is hoping to get a prototype ready for testing within the next six months, so it might not be too long until these robots hit the nightlife. Which, in turn, means that IT guys will finally enter the nightlife as well!
Helping (Robot) Hands
With any tech that is cloud-based or connects to various public devices, there is a need for IT professionals. And we are super excited for this. These robotic, helping hands are still in progress, but they are going to change the game when it comes to buying beverages! And we are looking forward to the expedited speeds at which we can refill our coffee mugs.
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