We’ve seen tacocopters and burrito bombers and though those will probably be real someday, neither is going to be really delivering anything any time soon. These beer drones, on the other hand, might actually be delivering real beer to real people. In South Africa. Maybe.
Part of the OppiKoppi music festival, these beer drones are supposedly going to be in real, working order when the shows start in August. For now, each octocopter is controlled by a human who positions it just right before releasing the brew, but later, the drones are said to operate autonomously on a GPS grid when patrons order beer on their phones.
Precisely targeting parachuted beers (into a crowd (of people drinking beer) no less) seems like a tricky proposition for a whole host of reasons, but the OppoKoppiFest Twitter and Facebook accounts make it sound pretty real. I’m not up enough on South African law to know if that’d be legal unlike here in the US. If it is a joke, it sure is a cruel one. So here’s hoping this is just the start of an eventual world-wide trend. A guy can dream, can’t he? [Popular Science]