Yelp Hackathon results in an iPad-powered KegBot | Hacker News Reader

Yelp Hackathon results in an iPad-powered KegBot

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46 pointsmartian19 comments

That is actually pretty impressive if done in 2 days only. Did they had a lot of experience with Arduino before? I can't see somebody that just picks the arduino stuff and does this right away without being a bit experienced on it.

Two of the people on the team were experienced hardware hackers, others were experienced iPhone developers.

I believe they did some minor planning beforehand to get the write components to build things.

(I work at Yelp)

Light on details, but the youtube video description credits kegbot.org for the Arduino software.

Nice work. What libraries did you use for the iPhone to Arduino serial connection?

The arduino firmware was based on kegbot.org's. We added RFID support as well as analog temperature sensor support (normally kegbot.org uses a separate usb rfid reader and a one wire digital temperature sensor). We wrote all the iPad software ourselves. After jailbreaking the iPad, it's possible to interact with the serial port in the dock connector just like you would in any POSIX (linux, unix, etc) system.

What would be cool is if you had a RFID ring and the RFID reader was in the handle to the keg so you could skip the swiping of the card step.

I feel stupid sometimes for not understanding (mostly men's) love of alcohol.

I mean it must be the alcohol right, because otherwise non-alcoholic beer would be just as popular?

But not to take away from the project which was impressive from a analog to digital stance - I would have liked to see more of how they wrote custom code for a locked device? Did they jailbreak it?

Hey Yelp geeks, this would be quite a bit more impressive if you could select from a range of kegs in a properly sized kegerator using the touch-screen, possibly including custom blends mixed from different kegs. It could keep track of your favorite beer, so you could just swipe your RFID and pour exactly what you want. Hurry and get to work on version 2.0, and be sure to keep us posted.

I could see this being popular at bars; self-serve beer stations with an electronic tab, used with a swipe of an RFID wrist band they give you at the door. Flag your friends' accounts and buy them a round of drinks with the tap of a button. Add an augmented reality iPhone app to buy a girl across the bar a drink (credit her RFID account), and things are looking pretty futuristic all of a sudden.

It was only 48 hours ;)

Custom blends of beer ? Have you had a beer before ?

What about Black & Tan's?

Once you get to the highest level of beer connoisseurship you'll realize that blends are not a bad thing.

self-service beer sounds a like a terrible terrible idea.... a good way for some idiots to intoxicate themselves to a point where a bartender might be help responsible.

I suppose you could track how many times a person has poured over time and cut them off at some point.

You could have "counselors" who go around the bar and chat people up, keep them safe, etc. Freeing up the bartenders could be a good thing.

This looks really impressive. I'm a software guy (Lamp Stack), where would I even begin to learn how to do something like this?

If you're looking to get started with hardware, I'd check out SparkFun's Arduino Inventor's Kit. http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_i...

er, is Yelp hiring?

http://www.yelp.com/careers

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