We love Mugsy, the Raspberry Pi coffee robot that has smashed its crowdfunding goal within days! Our latest YouTube video shows our catch-up with Mugsy and its creator Matthew Oswald at Maker Faire New York last year.

Mugsy

Labelled ‘the world’s first hackable, customisable, dead simple, robotic coffee maker’, Mugsy allows you to take control of every aspect of the coffee-making process: from grind size and water temperature, to brew and bloom time. Feeling lazy instead? Read in your beans’ barcode via an onboard scanner, and it will automatically use the best settings for your brew.

Looking to start your day with your favourite coffee straight out of bed? Send the robot a text, email, or tweet, and it will notify you when your coffee is ready!

Learning through product development

“Initially, I used [Mugsy] as a way to teach myself hardware design,” explained Matthew at his Editor’s Choice–winning Maker Faire stand. “I really wanted to hold something tangible in my hands. By using the Raspberry Pi and just being curious, anytime I wanted to use a new technology, I would try to pull back [and ask] ‘How can I integrate this into Mugsy?'”

By exploring his passions and using Mugsy as his guinea pig, Matthew created a project that not only solves a problem — how to make amazing coffee at home — but also brings him one step closer to ‘making things’ for a living. “I used to dream about this stuff when I was a kid, and I used to say ‘I’m never going to be able to do something like that.'” he admitted. But now, with open-source devices like the Raspberry Pi so readily available, he “can see the end of the road”: making his passion his livelihood.

Back Mugsy

With only a few days left on the Kickstarter campaign, Mugsy has reached its goal and then some. It’s available for backing from $150 if you provide your own Raspberry Pi 3, or from $175 with a Pi included — check it out today!