DIY Friday: Beer Launching Fridge!
Real rockets scientists are obsessed with launches. There’s something about cylindrical metal objects flying through the sky that captures our imagination.
Beer captures our imagination, too, which is why today’s DIY Friday combines two great obsessions into one lazy invention: the Robotic Beer Launching Refridgerator!
John W. Cornwell, a student at Duke University, invented this contraption — which we are certain history will rank alongside the printing press and the remote control for its impact in changing our lives for the better. He writes:
Have you ever gotten up off the couch to get a beer for the umpteenth time and thought, "What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???" Well, that was how I first conceived of the beer launching fridge. About 3 months and several hundred dollars later I have a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system. Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction….
To everybody who is asking about price, the BLF took me at least a hundred hours to build, as well as several hundred dollars worth of parts. I would put the price at about $2500 to build ONE.
The photos posted on Cornwell’s website reveal pure engineering genius, though for a while we puzzled why the the "magazine" only holds 10 cans of beer when they are sold in 12 packs.
The answer, of course, is that you and your buddy drink one while you load the fridge with beer.
