Robots that are powered by Raspberry Pi and Arduino can now create art from wine. Combining cloud computing and Internet of Things hardware, the Splash Machine allows users to create their own wine art online, streamed live and photographed for posterity.

Spilling wine is typically something to be avoided, though the shapes made by wine spills inspired a team of engineers at marketing firm KPS3 to build the Splash Machine. This is a robot that allows users to make wine art online using a web-controlled, live streamed rig powered by a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and Raspberry Pi 4, alongside an Arduino Micro, and the mechanical devices needed to move all the associated parts.

Video Demo

Get in Line

The website for the Splash Machine is a simple page which is powered by a React.js application stored in an S3 bucket, which is served via CloudFront, with the platform running on a MySQL and Redis database. A Node.js/Koa REST API server that communicates with an API worker that manages the queue and communicates with the machine through gRPC. A Lambda media worker is used for image processing, and Mux.com is used for live streaming the video captured on the Raspberry Pi 3B+.

Visitors to the website can watch the current splash art being made, or register to join the queue to use the service—once their turn arrives, they are given a full-screen view and options to control their creation.

The Hardware

Specialized watercolor paper is picked up by a servo equipped with a suction cup attached to a venturi (itself attached to an air compressor), which proceeds to hand off to a custom gripper to hold the paper in place for the wine to be spilled.

After that, a stepper motor, controlled by Arduino turns the lead screw, moving the paper into the splash zone, and fills the glass to the level selected by the user, and begins to swirl the glass at the at a speed which is also pre defined by the user.

Once correct speed is attained, a lever tips the glass forward, spilling the wine onto the paper. All of this is streamed by two cameras, with the final result photographed by a third. This photo is then processed in Lambda to clean up the photograph, detecting corners, applying filters and branding for the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce.

More Info

If you’d like to try it out for yourself, sign up here. You can also read more about the project on TechRepublic: