Here we celebrate the success of a wacky, fantasy creative idea- one of those musings over a drink too many that normally people forget about in the morning. But at Wired.com they took the leap to making that idea come alive. This is the story of an ugly, abandoned refrigerator being turned into every bloke’s fantasy fridge- a beer dispensing kegerator named ‘Beer Robot’.
One night at a local pub in San Francisco, 3 Wired.com employees decided that their office needed a kegerator. Who doesn’t! I also want a flying pony and a talking dog! However, it seems like Wired.com doesn’t have pessimists like me. At the next editor’s meeting the suggestion was welcomed! I bet applications for jobs at Wired.com have gone up!
With a budget of $200, the team decided to adopt an abandoned almond coloured fridge from Craigslist and convert it into its much more exciting cousin in 32 simple steps. The exterior had to be ‘pimped’ up and enthusiastic beer guzzlers and creative thinkers made their contribution through twitter, where the kegerator already had its very own identity, even before it had a tangible form! The theme for the kegerator was a geeky gadget.
Designer Dennis Crothers took inspiration from iPhone, Sony PSP and Flip Mino. The front had an iPhone-like face displaying 13 “apps” including Top 10 List Generator, Frosty Mugs, The Tap Store, /root beer (for the tap) and iFoam. The Flip side had a HAL 9000 eye where the lens should be, and almost every number used on all sides had some geeky significance. Jeff Stallings of Print NW made the custom vinyl wrap for Beer Robot.
The kegerator justly generated much hype. The local pub, 21st Amendment, threw a debut party for the Beer Robot. There was a contest to identify the significance of the numbers on Beer Robot and only one super geek, Perihan Cumali, got them all. There was also a fun kegerator competition between Beer Robot and the more expensive commercial kegerators-Edgestar KC2000 ($425) and the Sanyo BC-1206 ($650) kegerators.
The geekifying of Beer Robot is an ongoing project. Bioengineer Bryan Hermannsson installed a flowmeter that will keep track of how much beer has been poured, and has a digital readout of how many pints are left. Hermannsson and genomicist Tim Reddy are working on hooking this device up to the internet and writing a program to convert the information into tweets. A web cam pointing at the tap will soon be installed.
To think, just two months ago, Beer Robot was just a sad, lonely, almond-coloured refrigerator. Talk about the ugly duckling’s transformation into a beer dispensing swan!
Via wired.com
