System uses text-to-Tweet commands

Hobbyists at advertising agency Redpepper have demonstrated a way for Apple's Siri technology to be used for interactions in the physical world. The beer-pouring robot, known as Beeri, is actually an RC truck that has been outfitted with an Arduino Uno board and a Wi-Fi radio.

The system avoids requiring a direct connection between the beer truck and an iPhone. The creators established a Twitter account for Beeri, which is monitored by the Arduino board. Users can post "pour" Tweets via text message, enabling the iPhone to be used as an indirect control via Siri voice recognition and transcription.

When the truck detects a pour command on its Twitter feed, the Arduino hardware instructs the truck to drive against a spike to pierce the beer can. Beer is then funneled into a glass, however the primitive setup appears to waste a significant amount of beer and requires human intervention to reload a can onto the truck.

By Electronista Staff