Members of theTransistor, a Provo, Utah based Hackerspace, are showing off their entry in the Red Bull Creation contest. This is an all-in-one energy drink delivery system. It can take a warm can of Red Bull from a reserve rack and turn it into a chilled cup of goodness in no time. And it (kind of) cleans up after itself too!
The process starts when a can is opened by lancing it through the side walls. At the upper right corner of the rig you can see the apparatus that is responsible for this beverage extraction technique. The drink drains from the newly created openings into a funnel below. It then enters a heat exchanger the team built by surrounding an aluminum pipe with several copper pipes. The copper has ice water circulating through them from the orange bucket that serves as the reservoir. By the time the drink gets to the cup on the bottom left it is ready to drink. The empty can is crush, falling into a bin and making space for the next in the 16-can backup supply.
Read the headline as “Atomic beveradge delivery system”.
Automatic is cool, but atomic is always cooler.
Actually, atomic is often very warm. *ducks*
Does cooling the beverage after opening it significantly reduce the CO2 content?
It shouldn’t. Typically, when a carbonated drink gets warm, the gases release from the liquid. This is why they tell you to serve it chilled. So the xhilling actually would help to preserve it.
The problem is that by the time it’s chilled, most of the CO2 has already escaped. Just pouring the warm liquid onto a surface will significantly reduce the CO2 content.
I would be surprised if there is much carbonation left when it reaches the cup.
Well, this calls for a V2 with a pressure preserving sodalock (airlock for soda) on the draining mechanism, and a valve near the cup to release the chilled still pressurized soda.
Or, you could just put the can through a flash chiller. I’m thinking of a rubber membrane that expands with water pressure to touch and surround the can, with cold water circulating inside.
My guess by served chilled it’s meant the can is chilled before it’s opened. Here it looks as if the cans are at room temperature when they are opened.
Hello fellow HaDers. I helped on this project.
The Red Bull (or any other soda in a 8.4 to 12oz can) looses probably 25% of the carbonation going through the system. It’s not too bad, but it does loose some.
Quiet Deven. No one wants to hear you ;)
Cool project! However, are we all pretending that Red Bull tastes good? I missed that part…
I wonder how a cryocooler would do at chilling energy drinks? (:
The emergency stop switch is controlled by a microcontroller? Why??
Couldn’t you just dunk a can into a vat of ln2? It would keep the carbonation at least.
they want cold red bulls, not red bull ice blocks.
If you spin the can while in the ln2, and only keep it in there for a few seconds it shouldn’t freeze up.
Far out, but looks like a high maintenance item to me. Periodic sanitation of the part that contact the beverage.Keeping ice in that bucket.
Useless, since this won’t work with Club-Mate bottles.
I’m a little concerned, as I can’t remember the last time I drank Red Bull and it was RED.
I actually also helped with this project.
Though it is true, you would have to clean the parts periodically, we actually had very little time to design and implement the project so all things considered I think it turned out alright for the amount of time given.
You can also put regular sodas in it as well as we thought it would be useful if you wanted to have a nice ice cold …something else. :)