Start the first summer holiday off with a cool drink, courtesy of these three robotic arms. MIT Senseable City Lab, Coca Cola, and Bacardi have teamed up to bring you the Makr Shakr, an experiment in digital manufacturing and yummy beverages.


Users can interact in real time with the Makr Shakr, by inputting a cocktail recipe through a smartphone app. This becomes a weird social networking experience, as the recipe becomes part of a crowd-sourced drink combination. The idea behind this particular robot is not to replace a human bartender, but to experiment with social creation and consumption by making a shared community experience. It is certainly a different alternative to drinking alone and getting exactly what you ordered.

To make a graceful and appealing show, the movements of the robotic arms have been modeled on the gestures made by Roberto Bolle, an étoile dancer at the La Scala Opera House in Milan. The arms create a spectacle as they dramatically shake drinks and cut garnishes. This is probably what Tony Stark is doing with his workshop robots when they aren’t busy welding.


[Via Design Boom]