Archive for March, 2007

A Duke University Engineering Grad built this awesome mini-fridge that will catapult a beer into your hand at the command of a remote control button.

 To see a video of this in action, click the pic below.

From AP here:

When John Cornwell graduated from Duke University last year, he landed a job as software engineer in Atlanta but soon found himself longing for his college lifestyle. So the engineering graduate built himself a reminder of life on campus: a refrigerator that can toss a can of beer to his couch with the click of a remote control.
 
It took the 22-year-old Cornwell about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a mini-fridge common to many college dorm rooms into the beer-tossing contraption, which can launch 10 cans of beer from its magazine before needing a reload.

With a click of the remote, fashioned from a car’s keyless entry device, a small elevator inside the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it into the fridge’s catapult arm. A second click fires the device, tossing the beer up to 20 feet — “far enough to get to the couch,” he said.

Is there a foam explosion when the can is opened? Not if the recipient uses “soft hands” to cradle the can when caught, Cornwell said.