Thursday, August 10, 2006

World's first Cocktailrobot from the 1980s

Officially "Robotender", the people of Honeybee Robotics had dubbed their prototype "Ernie".
Alas, Honeybee's web-page doesn't feature Ernie any more - after all, this was how I found out about him around 2001.

For ROBOEXOTICA 2002, they sent us a VHS-tape, which I finally digitized and share on YouTube: there's a short version and a longer one, including two short TV-appearances.

Chris Chapman, vice-president of Honeybee Robotics at the time: "We're not out to put bartenders out of business. ... It's definitely not like something you're going to see quickly in the tavern around the corner - it's something you're gonna see maybe one or two in a metropolitan area."

Although that vision didn't come true for Ernie, which Honeybee offered from $100.000,- up, depending on the add-ons (monitor-"face", ...) he still to my knowledge was the first Cocktailrobot in the strict sense and has thus earned his place in the Cocktailrobot Hall of Fame.
He not only mixed and served various cocktails, he also chatted his customers up after taking spoken orders and did 1980s dance-moves.

No comments: