Rob Kaye, Mayhem to many of us, ‘One of God’s own prototypes,’ one of the three cocreators of the Bartendro project, passed away around February 21st, 2026.
I have a Gallery of photos of Mayhem during Burning Man 2012 when he worked on a memorial temple for Greg Junell.
Cocktail robotics does not need to be something that ‘just works.’ At least not in the Austrian RoboExotica sense.
There has been a slight difference between the viennese focus on robots who belong in a cocktail culture context and the California robotics focus on robots that actually work.
My artist friends think that I am a good engineer, and my engineer friends think that I am a good artist.
Rob was an engineer and a crazy maker. And along with the other creators of Bartendro, Pierre Michael and Erin Jones (Berman) they made a pretty cool thing.
One year they took it to Roboexotica in Vienna. And they were shocked that they had to buy their own alcohol. In the US robot makers and money are kept a bit apart by our puritanical attitude towards alcohol.
In Vienna ‘backpack beer’ sellers on the donaucanal are an accepted part of the culture.
In the early days Monochrom partially supported themselves by selling beer in the hall of Quartier 21 during any public event.
But at Roboexotica most of the robot makers put out a tip jar. A few makers who know the score have set prices. The Bartendro crew went with the tip jar approach.
And at the end of the night they had a more than respectable take!
Losing Rob is awful.