May 17, 2013

Makr Shakr – a robotic bartender that’s ready to enthral Google’s I/O After Hours party

by Sayan Chakravarty

After a hard day’s work you hit a pub to find a little reprieve but the busy bartender delays the drink, it can be extremely distressing. Or you’re fastidious about your cocktails and the man behind the bar invariably screws it up, then you’ll definitely want Makr Shakr to serve you your share of poison. Welcome to the total recall world where services are tended by robots. Makr Shakr is a bar unit that has a kaku robotic arm that prepares the drink, mixes and stirs it and then delivers it on a ten-lane conveyor belt. And to ask for a drink, the request has to be punched in on a dedicated app that also closely tracks the blood alcohol level. A display behind the bar gives out information on the number of drinks ordered, number of drinks in queue and current waiting time. This amazing unit will be the centre of attraction of the After Hours party at Google’s I/O event tonight.


The fascinating engineering marvel is a part of MIT’s SENSEable city lab project and is headed by Yaniv Turgeman. According to him, Makr Shakr doesn’t aim to replace bartenders but will act as a tool to understand and explore the dynamics of consumption and social networks in the context of sensor and digital fabrication technologies. Google approached the lab to come up with a project to be showcased at 2013 I/O event and out of many Makr Shakr was their first and most probable choice. As a tool to conduct analysis it can produce vast data on behavioural attributes and social functioning. It’s still in its project phase so don’t expect to find it behind a bar any time soon, but for now you can check out the video uploaded by the research team.

[Via – Robohub]