Serv O'Beer pours when iPhone accelerometer tells it to

Now that the holiday season is officially over (CES notwithstanding), there's officially no better time to get inebriated and wash away the sorrows of not having another government-recognized holiday for like, ever. After you've drug that dead tree out to the roadside and filled a few buckets with tears, why not try constructing your very Serv O'Beer in order to bring just a sliver of that joy back into your heart? Put simply, the project pictured above utilized Construx as the mechanical platform, a servo driving the action and ioBridge controlling the system; a so-called "perfect pour" was executed by linking an iPhone accelerometer to the system and turning it up. Have a look at the demonstration vid just past the break -- dollars to donuts it'll make you smile.

[Thanks, Hans]

[Hi Kenneth Posted Jan 5th 2009 5:36AM]

technology has gone so far...

[Sam of the Sun Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:43AM]

It doesn't make this any less bollocks though.

[iPodius Posted Jan 5th 2009 5:47AM]

Perfect pour? That thing was 90% head.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:04AM]

90% head, 10% doggie.

But seriously, in Real bars (as I like to call them) they pour this way as it boosts the flavor/aroma of the beer. Then they wait for it to settle and pours again in the same way. It can take up to five minutes to pour a beer in this way. But it definitely gives it at a different flavor.

[nanobis Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:52AM]

Yea man thats some good head.

[OneLove Posted Jan 5th 2009 10:52AM]

That's what she said!

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 5:52AM]

Useless.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 5:54AM]

That wasn't a pour, it just dumped the beer

[Level 5 Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:00AM]

Construx FTW!

[musback Posted Jan 5th 2009 9:05AM]

I played till my fingers hurt every night with construx when I was little :D Next to Lego and Meccano... Thanks for your comment, i looked over it otherwise... aahhh the nostalgia!

[Ken J Posted Jan 5th 2009 11:19AM]

They still make them???

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 2:40PM]

I was also a Construx Fanatic, and jumped when i saw the pic of this machine. Awesome toys, would give my right arm for them to make them again. I've been tempted to buy some up on ebay for S&G

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 8:19PM]

Glad to meet some fellow Construx lovers out there! It's obviously not, nor exactly about, the perfect pour (maybe for a triple bock perhaps?) but I wanted to quickly integrate my iPhone, servos, IOBridge, and that bin of 1980's building beams with blue connectors.

[Hydra Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:10AM]

Beer dumper , it didnt even pick up the accelerometer until the phone was already vertical

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:12AM]

"After you've drug that dead tree out to the roadside..."

drug? Surely you mean "dragged"?

[Shmiert Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:25AM]

Pointless. It didn't pick up the accelerometer's position at all until the iphone was vertical, and then it just tilted over immediately, dumping the beer in the glass. Using an iphone for it is pointless, it might as well have just been a button, since they didn't do anything with the phone's angle. But hey, iPhone, so worth a post.

Anyway, a -nice- way to do this would be a system that holds the glass and the bottle at the correct angles, and then having the bottle tilt at the same angle as your phone, with the glass tilt automatically adjusted for a perfect pour. Bonus points would be an animation on the iphone that tells you how far to tilt it.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:51AM]

can we please start rating news articles because this isn't even amusing it's just shit

[NewL Posted Jan 5th 2009 7:03AM]

I agree. Stuff like this or that crappy ancient Powerbook-to-Desktop mod seriously isn't worth a post...

[Taylor Tay Posted Jan 5th 2009 7:20AM]

I think this would be a good idea, just to give Engadget an idea of what their community likes.

That said it will probably result in a dangerous fight between Apple and Microsoft/Sony and Microsoft fanboys.

[nanobis Posted Jan 5th 2009 6:55AM]

Now we just need to get something to place the beer in the holder, and open it.

If you could control ALL of that from the iPhone id be inpressed.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 5th 2009 7:12AM]

LOL, doesn't look like the accelerometer is connected to that at all. Just looks like a website that reacts to when the phone is vertical, and then tips. He moves the iPhone so that it SEEMS like to work with the accelerometer. lol

[jaggedjake Posted Jan 5th 2009 7:43AM]

If you click the screenshot of the photo you see how he did it: http://www.instructables.com/id/Serv_OBeer_with_iPhone_for_the_Perfect_Pour/ Now, the question remains, "Is that target in the background for the beer?"

[dEEtS Posted Jan 5th 2009 10:13AM]

Can i have a flake with that?

[jowie Posted Jan 5th 2009 12:28PM]

Mooooose alert :-)

[Hackettman Posted Jan 5th 2009 11:08AM]

Worth it for the iphone...... Build dumping devices......

[potatoes Posted Jan 5th 2009 4:18PM]

So if you leave it on a table, Apple gets you flaming drunk.

[DefusedHero Posted Jan 5th 2009 8:54PM]

iPhone? Isn't that an iPod touch... To be more specific 2nd gen iPod touch. A tad bit too drunk there mate!