Slashdot Mirror
Koolio, the Beer Delivery Robot
Ipingforpong writes "Recently a University of Florida engineering student named Brian Pietrodangelo built a mini fridge named Koolio that when you place an order through the website, will deliver a cold soda, beer, or various candy to you. Right now it's only available in one building at University of Florida but soon it could catch on in office buildings and other places."
Another excuse to avoid women
does it clean up the barf also?
Table-ized A.I.
Instead of missing that knock out punch Koolio could deliver you, and all your friends, beer all night long. You have this luxury 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Find a human to do that.
Wait... I thought that's what wives are for
I'm really starting to consider marrying my computer...
...don't question it!!!
that's gotta be one hot piece of hardware. I'd bet it'd be hard to keep thieves at bay.
This is kind of like that kozmo.com thing a while ago. I think it may catch on but they will have to do very carefull during buisness planning. I am curious how long the robot takes to deliver, and if it can climb the staris to my front door and ring the door bell like a pizza man? When they get one by me I will be their biggest customer.
Get paid to read spam
for a second there I thought koolio was a beer drinking robot..
did you forget to take your meds?
Forget defusing bombs and finding victims buried in rubble.... This robot is damn useful with real world potential!
That's right. All your base.
Still, can't beat the R2D2 factor!
...until someone hacks it and they catch it wandering down the interstate towards my college.
You can tell these kids are going to make it in the business world...
He provides no source nor price for such key components as Sonar, LCD, IR detectors, Motors, and Wheels. You can almost hear the future bean counter cutting them a check for $260 for this project and laughing.
But what happens when there is no beer in the fridge? Is it going to roll its ass down to the 7-11 and pick up a six pack and restock itself?
Rumor has it the next version will also incorporate teledildonics.
Nice, but does it play Gangsta's Paradise while roaming around the hood of your range vent?
When I was going to college in San Francisco, I lived in the dorms and right around that time (1998) cookiesnmilk.net opened, targeted at us more lit folk as a solution to midnight snacking needs. It was great-- warm, delicious cookies delivered to your door with cold milk. Gradually the company had the mistaken notion they could make bigger money by catering to the office crowd. Never heard of them after a certain point, their website is no longer. Oh well. Keep with the college kiddies.
Here is some evidence of their existence. I have a photograph with a delivery person that is an utter classic.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
Now if we could just set it up with speakers, mp3 player and a little disco ball......
I gave a 1 to all your wife's pics.
Please have been delivered by 12PM tomorrow. Thanks!
*twitch*
Hospitals have been using robots similar to this for years, check out these two links...i candplace. html
a ti on.html
http://marc.med.virginia.edu/projects_p
http://www.virginia.edu/insideuva/1999/39/autom
However, I dont think you would want to mix up the fridge robot with one of these by accident, HEY! thats not Cherry Coke, its blood!
Sig- http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?ayefly
--- audSTM (auditory Short Term Memory with associative tags for pattern recognition)
--- --- audRecog (auditory pattern Recognition of heard sounds and phonemes)
--- Parser (for the identification of parts of speech in word-recognition)
--- --- Instantiate (to create an instance or concept-node on a concept-fiber)
--- Activate (to reactivate the concepts of words already known by an AI)
--- --- spreadAct (spreading Activation by association from concept to concept)
--- enVocab (English Vocabulary, and potentially any known human language)
--- Parser (for the identification of parts of speech in word-recognition)
--- --- Instantiate for creating new concept-nodes or instances of any learned concept
will it say "Bede bede bede..." when it hands you the beer?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
They advertise 54oz cans, but you really end up getting between 15-20.
What a ripoff!
d00d... it's called a WIFE. Get one. To paraphrase Tony the Tiger... "They're GREAAAT!!!" Imagine, sex and beer 24/7/365...
[CRACK!] What's that dear? Oh, your mother is coming over and I need to clean up before she gets here? OK. Sorry fellas... gotta go.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!
I welcome our beer delivering robot overlords. In fact they're welcome at my house ANY time.
"Word up foo, he tryin' to hate, dawg. I be tha real Coolio."
I'd pay a bit more for the convenience factor. I wonder what the total operating cost is for this. hm
Sounds good, I could sure go for a few beers at the office.
-- Seq
From the description:
Right. So instead of taking 30 seconds to get to the fridge and back, I'll pull out my laptop, login to the robot control server, place my order, then wait for the bot to get my drink to me; at best this takes 2 minutes
Its a cool idea, I'll admit, but maybe not the most practical. Especially since when I launch my browser to login to the robot server, my home page is /. and it takes me 20 minutes to read and comment on new stories. Now, where was that work I actually meant to be doing right now...
Even heroes have the right to dream
But what when, having drunk that beer, you really gotta piss, what's Koolio gonna do for ya then, can it help with that as well?
Your link says "The connection was refused". Definitely must be your wife's site. :)
She's a double bagger, for sure.
* Dr. Nechyba is in an important meeting with a future client and has a sudden urge for a Diet Coke.
.cn or .sg, while the secretary in .us gets cut on her payroll because an important piece of her job isn't hers anymore.
:-)
* He logs on to the network and tells Koolio that he would like a Diet Coke.
If he can interrupt the meeting for "quickly ordering a drink fir himself", I doubt that the-not-so-the-future-client would be happy to not get one!!
And then, to surf along on the wave of outsourcing fear, this machine will gets made in
But for the rest, it's a cool toy
bash$
Now he's gonna get sued by both Coolio AND Lucas.
This robot doesn't look like it can hold a lot of beer. It would be cool if this robot could restock itself and rotate the cold beers to the front and the warm ones to the back. Anyone know anything about the robot from the Rocky 4 movie? Are their such things in the making?
Mark
See, this document reveals that although this project is ahead of schedule, the prototype won't even be done until August. :)
Not only that, but foraging for beer is fun. Think of it as a group activity that builds teamwork, and makes long lasting friends. Having a robot might be neat for a while, but half the fun of beer is getting it. It is a quest... The quest... for the Holy Beer!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Personally i just put a bar fridge near the TV.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
A. The server only takes orders from on-campus ips.
B. The robot is turned off for the night.
C. We have just slashdotted a Refrigerator.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
That's such a sweet idea, but why should this robot be giving away free drinks? I'd think that one with a dollar or coin mech would be a better idea. But for home use, yeah, it's a sweet idea!
... but there is plenty of data regarding how females actually destroy the geniuses they encounter by becoming demanding, selfish and annoying enough to trigger deep bouts of depression, and even suicide. When geeks find a really special woman, they still have to avoid *other* women, so there's no change there, really (meaning: it's good to avoid women, and practice that because it keeps you honest).
What we need is a robot that delivers women! (women who are genetically altered to be quiet, compassionate and understanding of what it is to be geeks; or at the very least, cool enough to chill when papa's coding)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It can hold cans of beer, but does it have enough room for a couple of 40's? :-)
I'm a Junior at UF, and I took a graduate class in robotics this semester, and I've seen the robot a few times sitting at it's docking station in one of the rooms on the 3rd floor of Benton. It was also supposed to be demonstrated at this semester's demo day for our class (even though it wasn't part of the class, they just like to show what all the robots that the Machine Intelligence Lab is working on) but it had broken the night before. It does look pretty impressive in real life though just sitting there, but I wish I could report back how it acted in person.
I'm sorry Dave but I can't do that. You're a little fat to be drinking soda Dave.
'Tis a pity indeed. The King is dismayed. And to be ousted by a 'real' post merely adds greater insult to the injury.
I was not familiar with plastic.com ... it seems interesting indeed. I shall peruse it henceforth.
From the web page:
"It locates room 326 and delivers Dr. Nechyba his Diet Coke thus averting disaster."
He would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
are you normally an asshole, or just play one on slashdot.
Though Koolio is pretty darn cool, I wouldn't want one around the office. I like having an excuse to get up and walk to the other end of the building now and then (getting my own coffee, thank you).
All we need now is a "Shtoolio" waste collection robot and I won't have any excuses to get up at all!
Does anyone remember an episode of the cosby show when Theo was in college... one of his roomates rigged up a machine to deliver soda cans to the living room through clear pipes. I have thought of doing this myself, with a bank-deposit vacuum system to deliver cans of fizzy liquid to my couch. just a few acutuators and an air pump would do it I think.
Did the famous rapper become a robot and start delivering beer?
"Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky"-Pink Floyd
a dog, a dishrag, refridgerator with floor-height handle, and a comparitively small 2 or 3 month investment of training.
upkeep? bulk dog food is competitively priced to electricity-sucking robot power in most areas.
"hey i'll use my RO- BOT to fetch a beer."
no thanks.
*whistle*
dog opens refridgerator door with dishrag, fetches beer.
until a robot means a beautiful women who can satisfy the penis, i will prefer the beer-fetching and loyal domestic pet. by the time the former happens, the penis will no longer be in charge.
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
In Australia, we already have it...
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
now bob has to get up off his ass and walk to the refrigerator. now THAT would be tragic.
All your preview button are belong to hello kitty.
Lucky for her I am also a plumber...
From the department of "let's squeeze that much more work from our employees." Heaven forbid if you take a minute to get a drink form the vending maching at work. I must say it's a lot cooler than the mini fridge I have beside my couch. Can you tell I'm a bachalor?
I've also invented a bot! Not only does it fetch my beer but it also cooks and gives me sex. I call it the Work On My Animalistic Needs bot, or WOMAN for short.
The Erogenous Zone
The Snatchio: A web site that logs orders for BJs from your wife. Who will help me implement this wonderful idea?
quick, someone have it to deliver a bunch of pina coladas with umbrellas to the pike fraternaty!
The king is dead, long live the king.
And they say dogs are a mans best friend!
Why go through days of training your dog to fetch beer when you can obtain the same results from and all night coding spree!
I'm down to only three (actually 2.6) beers. Can you bring me another 12-pack of Bud Dry? Can you rob a Zippy Mart for me? Get me a couple of packs of Camels while you're at it.
I wouldn't normally ask this, but Ruth's kids steal my beer and cigs, so I'm hoping you can help me out. What a pal.
Thanks....
"It navigates the hall way with a verity of instruments: Sonar for accurate long distance coverage. IR for close obstacle avoidance. Shaft encoding for accurate navigation once location is determined. Web cameras for reading room numbers off the wall."
They should have entered this bot in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Looks like it might have a had better chance then most of the other entries.
I've always found that getting up off my ass to get an ice cold refreshment in the dorm was about as good as actually drinking the beverage. Sometimes its nice to take a trip from the third floor to the basement to get a drink just to get away from the work even for a minute.
Koolio was conceived as part of the Intelligent Machines Design Laboratory, a graduate-level class here at the University of Florida in which students spend an entire semester developing their own robots to perform various tasks. The IMDL just had a media expo a couple of days back, and you can find more pictures and information about Koolio and the other robots at the following address:
http://www.mil.ufl.edu/imdl/Mark
Damn you, slashdotters! Damn you, all!
His user ID is 56 so he's one of the original elitist pricks to join slashdot. The newer nerds seem to be better adjusted human beings.
I'd rather this thing made you chase it for some time -- to force some excercise. Soda is bad enough for you even when you have to walk to take it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This robot will bring you beer the one from a few weeks ago will drive you home when you are drunk all we need now is a robot that will let you pee into it all night and clean up after you and your friends the next morning
You have this luxury 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Find a human to do that.
I have one of these. I call it "wife".
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
...there are a few bugs in the Give::Sex function, but as long as it keeps delivering food and beer, who cares?
The Erogenous Zone
I guess that this is just another case of replacing human labour with robot labour. Maybe could use these to restock bar fridges in hotels?
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
... bekause, klearly Koolio must be running KDE.
/me ducks and runs for cover
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
I think Koolio is on strike...
coolie also cooly
n. Offensive pl. coolies
An unskilled Asian laborer.
Were they thinking -- at all -- when they named this thing?
from the article:
"This floors houses the Machine Intelligence Lab(MIL) as well class rooms and professor's offices."
Spoken like a true engineer.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
R2D2 + A vending machine...hmm...I would think that the robot would take your money and order and go to the vending machine and make the correct selection, retrieve the item and then return it back to you. Then it doesn't depend on the supply of the robot, but rather what's in the vending machine.
Hmm..interesting all right - but I fail to see how this is intelligent - esp since it comes from the intelligent machines lab. Working in a fixed layout - like an office- routes can easily be precalculated and thus, at most it needs a collision avoidance mechanism, rather than an intelligent route discovery mechanism.
so the crux is, what happens when it gets lost ?
The problem is that I STILL have to stock Koolio. What's worse is that I STILL have to go to the store and buy the cases of beverages to LOAD in Koolio. Finally, Koolio can not take a crap or urinate FOR me. I am really dissappointed. Where has good ol' American innovation gone? Why am I still required to wear clothing, bathe, and work? Koolio simply doesn't fit in to my busy sloth-like lifestyle yet. Back to the drawing boards guys.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
that found it side-splittingly hilarious that the "Gangsta's Paradise" artist decided to call himself "Coolio"? That humor is reborn today with this article.
"Cuolo" in Italian is not something one generally wants to be associated with. I beleive Spanish has a not-too-distant equivalent.
Let's all go to his home, and see what happens
No, you stupid robot! You are supposed to give it to *me*, not drink it yourself. And stop that disco shit, will ya?
Table-ized A.I.
When executed I get the following: error code 4256: Not now - I have a headacke! Any OSS for WOMAN bot ADVIL?
You could of course program the bot to make you come after it. Then once you catch it, after an exciting pursuit through all the corridors, dorms and elevator shafts, you've *really* deserved it. And your beer will be shaken, not stirred.
teabagger.
[Enter a Hairbot which has replacement hair for the crew growing on it.]
Hairbot: I got your page Mr Fry, your new hair is ready!
[He takes the hair off his head and puts it on Fry's head. Fry shuffles it into place.]
That robot was always just...weirdly creepy.
I for one welcome our new beer-serving overlords
I don't see why you're supposed to select the drink. Does that make a difference?
I gave 1 to his wife.
It made me sick.
Seriously though, text america ?? That is the most pointless website I have ever visited. Its the sort of thing that empowers the rest of the world to hate america.
I did, they're called "kids"....
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
Koolio, the Beer Delivery Robot ... best topic ever
+5 drunk mod ;)
Matt
You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
Like trawl the neighbourhood bars until it can find some cheerleaders to smuggle back your room
I'm sure we can deliver an inflatable woman with the beer. The right robot could probably even inflate her for you. And we'll throw in a free pizza while we're at it. After all, we wouldn't want an idiot like you out on the streets. (Shut up papa, mamma is coding)
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Imagine a Beowulf... Oh never mind....
"I did this cuz Linux gives me a woody"
All they now need is a toilet-robot.
~llauren
It's a great pity that the pneumatic tube mail delivery system didn't take off. It would have been really cool to be able to click on a web page, and have the item delivered straight to your desk or house.
new robot overlord I wouild be happy to see =)
Welcome of great dispenser of beverages...
Will it be a part of next stable version of KDE?
I'd prefer to have its features embedded inside Kaori (http://www.realdoll.com/sample14.asp)
I think I can see it coming... Hey, Koolio: Bring me some Vanilla Ice..!
Someone needs to invent "Trashio" a robot that empties trashcans. No body where I work does that, and the stuff just piles up in the trash can. Apparently, they think, (or don't think) that we have a janitorial service that does that. We don't.
So, when do we have "Trashio" on site?
1,$s/Diet Coke/beer/g
And I suppose that it's not an inconvenience to have a robot walking in front of the screen to deliver you a drink.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The University of California has developed a follow-on robot to the Coolio called the C-Peeio.
Equipped with a wet-dry vacuum and storage bottles, the C-Peeio is the latest must have tool for lan-parties, video game addicts and call-center staffers.
Order now and receive the first 10 laboratory analysis free!
nk
> are you normally an asshole, or just play one on slashdot.
I was really only kidding. The idea of drinking beer at work made me laugh (which was what the parent suggested, accidentally).
I meant no offense by my remark and I appologize if anyone became pissed off because of it. I personally think AA is a great organization, with lots of love, and I have also suffered from the side effects of alcoholism in my life from someone dear to me. That said, drinking at work was something I faced regularly, from the other side of the table. I guess it just brought back memories when I read that.
So I hope you and others will understand that I was speaking from experience, and trying to make light of such situations, not trying to be an asshole.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
A better solution (that would make a good candidate for traditional vending machine owners), would be a special vending machine that has the bot attached... orders would cause the item to drop into the bot for delivery.. you'd be able to have a MUCH larger selection, you could go ahead and stock some extra "popular" items in the bot incase it had an extra delivery come in while it was out.
meh
The Computer Science House at Rochester Institute of Technology has built 2 networked soda machines, and is currently working on building a robot that delivers the soda to the rooms. I'd like to actually see this U of F robot in action, because one of the problems RIT is having is difficulties avoiding hazards, like people...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Koolio, meet the Pyxis HelpMate, found at better hospitals near you.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Well, as an amateur, spending my evenings and weekends over the last two years trying to develop a robot ( my first one was a disaster, but my current one has much promise ), whenever I talk to someone about it the first question they ask is "you mean like in battlebots?"
My response is always "I'm not making it for fighting, and if I did, it would get its shiny aluminum ass stomped" ( my robots are legged, and therefore somewhat slow ).
So... they think for a few seconds and ask "will it bring you beer?"
"Maybe someday" I respond.
It's kind of depressing. Here I am trying to make something interesting -- I'm doing private research into behavioral / automata brain design. I firmly believe I can make something as agile and graceful as a cat, or at the very least a retarded cat. But so far I haven't delved into image processing or even goal oriented behavior except for "follow the heat signature". But I think it's wonderful stuff anyway.
Yet people only care about wether its a battlebot or a beerbot.
Fie on them all.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
In the common tongue, they are called "teaching assistants."
Instead of missing that knock out punch Koolio could deliver you, and all your friends, beer all night long. You have this luxury 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Find a human to do that.
That's precisely why my dad had kids. That, and his TV didn't have a remote control.
100% on the second paragraph.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Perhaps a better name for that would be "Stoolio".
I think that's strike three for the geeks & nerds. Yep, geeks & nerds... no women for you. Just as the first post indicated, this is just another reason to avoid women.
As a person in a committed relationship, I can tell you that the ultimate goal is to have the woman get you the beer. This robot is contradictory to man's goal of subservient women.
Down with the bot! Down!
Everybody grab your pitchforks and torches...
Considering the rappers famous sense of humor (I think he had a contract out on Weird Al for making a parody of Gangsta's Paradise) I'm sure he'll love this.....
Just stay cool Koolie err, I mean Coolio... yeah that's it...
Is this the end of water-cooler-talk? Now what's my excuse for leaving my desk and walking around?
[Please sign here]
"You have this luxury 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Find a human to do that."
Isn't that why people have kids? I can't imagine anyone would want them otherwise...
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
Make it yell out in an effeminate male voice when abuse:
"Stop that, oooh, you bad boy. That's very naughty of you"
You can embarrass any would be aggressors enough so that the will leave beerbot alone then.
So it can drag me off the floor when I pass out.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
What with a name like Koolio and all one certainly would think so!
As a former UF Gator Elec/Comp engineering student, I'm happy to see our AI/MIL department get some cool props, even if it's for a rolling beer fridge. Not everything great starts at CMU. I'm sure CMU Red Team's entry will be an all-terrain, autonomous, kick-ass beer keg semi-trailer. Can't wait....
You DO have access to their cost of living. Why do you think your shoes, your electronics, and everything else manufactured in the third world, is so cheap?
from the alcholics in gainesville.
lose != loose
Now I have no reason at all to get away from my computer. Well, except those trips I'd have to take after drinking so much beer.
Note to self:
The next project is a lavatory robot that can be called from a website.
If I may present a simple proof:
.... [1]
............ [2]
... [3] ... [4]
:)
We know that girls require time and money.
Girls = Time X Money
However, we also know that time is money.
Time = Money
Substituting in Time in [1].
Girls = Money X Money
or => Girls = (Money)^2
Finally, we know that Money is the root of all
evil.
Money = sqrt(Evil).... [5]
Substituting [5] in [4].
=> Girls = (sqrt(Evil))^2
therefore Girls = Evil!
I would like to say that it could be +Evil or -Evil. I tend to prefer the ones that are +Evil myself
Why not save money and just place the mini-fridge in the desired room. It's no longer necessary to have a mobile fridge and it's cheaper, too.
I think the posting are becoming little bit geneder baised.
If you have woman in life & if she is great then life will be more fun with kernel hacking & KDE programming & having a candle light dinner with her.
But if you do not have a proper woman in your life do not get frustated coz then you also have the great stuff to do like kernel hacking & KDE programming
coding a falling in love both are higer mental processes so if you have to you can process them happily only if you have a good scheduler & if you have only one process "coding" then no problem the sechduling become very easy.
Too many beers from your robot fridge? Time to call in the robot urinal! Never leave your couch again! Hooray for bedsores!
I for one welcome our beer-toting robotic overloards.
mattdev@server$ touch
cannot touch `/dev/genitals': Permission denied
his webserver's a beerbot too and now he's cursing us for melting his convenient bringer of beverages.