NXT1engineer‘s remote controlled Beer Machine twists off bottle caps and trundles the beer into a mini cooling unit, which chills the brewski to -9 degrees C. [via The NXT Step]
34 thoughts on “Lego Mindstorms NXT Beer Machine”
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Lego Mindstorms NXT Beer Machine
First—very cool. But why open it and then chill it? Wouldn’t the reverse be better? And is the -9C a typo? Who wants to drink a beer chilled to -9C. Only American Light beers taste good ice cold.
Well, he is using Heinekens…
The chiller block (which cools the beer) is at -9. The beer itself is cooled to around 8 or 9. So maybe more a misunderstanding than a typo.
During the chill process, the temperature of the beer is sampled with a thermometer. So the beer may be opened first to make that measurement easier.
Oops. Forgot to mention you can see the temperature displayed on the vertical strip tape during the chill process.
I had a feeling that, that is what that strip was for thanks for clearing that up.
Okay—I get it. I take it back my criticisms—it’s just very cool.
Hello
Here a comment from the nxt1Engineer
Thanks for blogging this project.
Very neat! It is interesting the comments projects like this get (not just here, on the Internet in general and I have seen it in my own as well). People see what was a one off project, probably made by someone for the fun and experience of just making it, as some kind of practical, commercial product then criticise it for NOT being like a practical, commercial product. They should be appreciated for their artistic and creative aspects. This one is great! It’s well presented and has loads of nice little details like the yellow tabs showing things moving and beer bottle top buttons. Really nicely done! I really must get some of that new, high tech Lego myself one day.
I wasn’t criticizing it for being non-commercial. I was criticizing the choice of letting the carbonation dissipate while the beer is being chilled. And I was criticizing the reported -9C temperature, which is probably not physically possible with the amount of alcohol in most beer—I suspect most beer would freeze at -9C (but I haven’t tried it). Beer geeks are very specific about proper drinking temperatures. The Guinness Brewery in Dublin serves Guinness at two temperatures: The proper temperature, and “for those who like it colder” (e.g., most Americans).
I was drinking a Guinness with visiting Germans last year, and one of the women recoiled from the glass and said, “It’s sooo cold.” We asked for non-chilled glasses, and that helped.
Sorry, I was unclear. It was a general comment. Not a criticism of your comments. If the chiller project is anything like the one I did years ago then there might be some artistic license in the actual temperatures involved for the sake of the project and to illustrate the point. My first thought was also why not chill the beer before opening it too but well, if that’s the way the builder decided to do it then that’s fine.
This material is not available in Germany, because of GEMA!
Very funny video
Now we just need to have a machine that will dip a nacho chip into some cheese and place it into my open mouth, then we’re in business
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