Hello gents and advance apologies for my feeble english,
Three days ago, I had a dream. Well, I was awake, so it was pretty much a daydream. Nothing relevant - the important bit is that I was disturbed in a crucial moment by getting hit in the head with a thrown beer can.
Once the perpetrator had been suitably defenestrated (Hard, but only from the first floor. He brought me beer and it was a guinness, after all) the thought hit me; what if my refridgerator could do this for me, with me less dozy?
What if I could build myself a beer-throwing machine?
So, while at work (12-hour overtime shift) and in a dull moment, I sketched up this rough draft. (PDF ALERT!)
The idea behind it is a pneumatic system driven by, I don’t know, a bottle of compressed 02. Two extenders (point 3 on the sketch) keep the launching platform in a retracted or extended state, while the middle extender is the spring-compressing power behind the launch plate(1). An idea is that the suction generated by the extenders extending back into the default position contributes to sucking the launch plate back into it’s compressed “ready position.” I don’t know if this can be accomplished.
So, basically, the operation would go like this:
- Push a button
- Extenders retract through suction until at a 25-30 degree downwards angle.
- The pressure built up is released through the middle retractor into the spring-loaded launch plate, which shoves the 560g (~1 pound) beer can up around 50-60 cm into the air.
- Automatically, the pressure is reupped in the top and bottom extenders and the platform is pushed to the default state and automatically loaded through the feeding tray (5) (think feeding trays from convenience store soda fridges).
- The process resets and all you have to worry about is restocking the beers now and then and occasionally refilling the O2 bottle. (Possibly CO2, I dunno)
Not too complicated, is it?
Yeah, I know, I know, “why don’t you just grab a beer, etc”. 'Cause it’s just not as cool, and I’m bored. Thinking about grabbing a beer wouldn’t entertain me half as much as plotting this has. Also, as the subtitle says, 'cause nothing says “welcome home” like your refridgerator throwing you a beer. (Well, unless it’s a sexy SO, but yeah. I can’t find one at Home Depot)
[ul]
[li]Pressure plate (pneumatic)[/li][li]Retractor fastening spot thing[/li][li]Retractor/extender[/li][li]Pneumatic gadget suited for retractors/extenders[/li][li]Feeding belt (think soda restocker)[/li][li]Beer support[/li][li]Support beam[/li][li]Spring device holder[/li][li]02 tank (or C02)[/li][/ul]
So, anyone up for helping me making this dream reality? 
(I approach this project with absolutely no knowledge about anything technical whatsoever. I’m a computers geek with a media education and don’t even change my own oil)
Basically, my troubles lie in calculating the pressure needed to send the bottle into the sky, figuring out how to design the spring mechanism and how to design the pneumatic device)
Any help is appreciated!