From the philosophical depths of a beer lover, here's a quote that serves perfectly well as an opening for this piece. "He who believes that he's too lazy to move and reach out for a beer doesn't deserve it." Surely, there may be some arguments developed from this saying, but this is not the point of this article.
Even though we love to be surrounded by people who are not that lazy as to require assistance in getting a beer, when fun is involved, we could certainly cope with a robotic helper. So here's the remote controlled beer crate.
The idea could have been implemented way easier, by modding a remote controlled toy car so that it can haul a beer crate, but that would have been too predictable. So here is this German fellow who thought to instill a hefty dose of fun in such a project.
His name is Niklas Roy who runs a robotics shop in the German capital, Berlin, who set off to create the perfect butler for a barbecue afternoon. He indeed tore down an RC toy, but only to retrieve the electronic boards, then used a competition pro joystick, a microcontroller, a handful of diodes and relays and a battery pack to assemble the RC beer crate.
After building a platform from plywood, he secured a Berliner crate to it, alongside the electronics and the battery pack. For propulsion, Niklas chose two automotive windshield wiper motors turning two larger wheels and two casters for steering. A digital voltmeter also tells the party if the beer butler is getting tired.
Things look pretty simple to replicate at home, provided basic RC knowledge is at least a fraction of the love for beer needed to build such a toy. Oh, and once enough bottles are empty, the beer butler can also wheelie!
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