This article is more than 1 year old

El Reg needs you – to help build an automated beer-transporting robot

We're thirsty and comfy and there's work to do and it's faaar

The Register needs to build a robot capable of transporting multiple pints of beer without spilling a drop. Can you help?

Vulture Central has moved to a shiny new shared collaboration space in central London, which, among other exciting advances, features a selection of beers to refresh thirsty hacks, weary from a day of making up new backronyms for TITSUP.

To save our very own PFY having to make multiple trips to and from the beer taps, it seemed a good idea to reopen the doors of the Special Projects Bureau with a view to building a machine capable of navigating the short distance from beer to office.

The initial brief would have the robot follow whichever member of staff has been nominated to collect the beer. Once loaded with beer, the robot would then autonomously follow the staff member back to the office, automatically dodging any obstacles along the way.

A future version would operate more intelligently, and be capable of opening the door that divides reporting staff from the outside world.

The team of highly skilled boffins at El Reg plan to make use of a few heavy-duty motors to get the thing rolling, a Raspberry Pi attached to a controller, some sensors, a stuffed vulture (our mascot, as depicted in the Reg masthead) and a soldering iron. Hammers may also be involved.

Ready-made robot platforms already exist for the Pi, but where would the fun be in that?

Please put any software and hardware suggestions in the comments below. The team are eager to get to work. And have a beer. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like