A neighborhood-party machine that evolved from a serial-controlled drink dispenser into a speech-enabled, multi-controller cocktail robot.
automationhardwareroboticsfun
What happened
Build story
I rarely drink alcohol, but I do like building engineering projects that make people smile. When I learned my neighborhood hosts a large annual block party, I decided an automated bartender sounded like a reasonable contribution.
Version one used a Raspberry Pi touchscreen interface, a Teensy microcontroller, a serial protocol, and a forest of stepper motor drivers wired across a breadboard. It worked, and it served a lot of drinks, including an alarming number of late-night Long Islands.
When the party finally returned after COVID interruptions, I wanted the second version to feel more theatrical. I redesigned the enclosure into a giant upside-down flask, used kerf bending and custom jigs to shape the plywood body, and added a camera-driven ordering flow with text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and fuzzy matching.
Version two also replaced the wiring sprawl with repaired and modified 3D printer controller boards, which made testing easier and let me run multiple steppers in parallel. I also redesigned the peristaltic pumps so they could be press-fit by hand instead of turning assembly and disassembly into a chore.
Why it mattered
Project notes
Served hundreds of drinks across multiple parties with two major hardware iterations.
Moved from touchscreen ordering to a camera and voice-driven interaction flow.
Used the project to experiment with enclosure design, mechatronics packaging, and human-facing automation.
