The Coca-Cola Company offers $10K Prize to Re-Imagine the Soda Fountain

http://www.hackerdojo.com/Re-ImagineTheFountain

by bluehat • 13 years ago

29 61 13 years ago

xutopia• 13 years ago

I wonder why there aren't more cheap R&D contests like those. It seems like a fun way to get outside ideas and can result in some really nice inventions.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

I think it's a matter of knowing how to connect to a community of folks who make things. That's probably why they partnered with Hacker Dojo.

BrianEatWorld• 13 years ago

I find this incredibly interesting, but I am a bit intimidated by my lack of hardware hacking experience. What would you recommend as a good way to get into these sorts of hackathons?

elmuchoprez• 13 years ago

I would guess that the legal teams at major companies are traditionally gun shy about this kind of thing. Let's say Coke buys some IP resulting from this thing for $10k and then it goes on to revolutionize their business model and they make millions and millions from it .

I'm going to guess that whoever got stuck with the $10k is going to come back with lawyers and say they were taken advantage of, that their interests in the IP negotiation weren't properly represented, that a team of tinkers was no match to negotiate with a professional team of IP lawyers, etc... That's not to say that those are valid arguments, but they are arguments plenty of people make after the fact.

It's been my experience that huge companies have a vested interest in the appearance of dealing fairly and matter-of-factly with small third party vendors, especially in terms of IP law. Even if taking advantage of someone in such a manner doesn't become a legal issue, it's a huge PR liability.

joezydeco3• 13 years ago

Maybe because product development engineers know what their time and skills are worth, and it's a lot more than $10K?

Don't get me wrong, little contests like this can be great experience for smaller businesses that need development skill and for designers that need the portfolio pages.

But this is Coca-Cola. Then again, considering how much money got sunk into the Freestyle (and they're not out of the woods yet, that machine has problems), maybe a $10K contest is a way to keep the PD pipeline going and keep the accountants happy.

rikacomet• 13 years ago

I'm outside of US, if any team going to the event, wants a extra hand, I would love to collaborate. I already have a good idea about the external design.

skype: carl.theteuton

solistice3• 13 years ago

I'm outside as well, but I'll share some aswell. There's been some beer keg development using elastic bags and paper cartons to create throaway kegs which eliminate the overhead of sending the kegs back for refilling. Esentially the liquid isn't squirted forth using a pump, but the elasticity of the container. This could be useful because it would get rid of that pesky pump. It'd also save space. When it comes to cooling the beverage, I'd go with either thermoelectric elements (convert electrical potention into thermal potential - Peltier element), or Thermoacoustic elements, which use precisely generated sonic waves to cool liquids. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoacoustic_heat_engine) Plus? You'll get the cool where you want the cool, and you'll save the whole compressor, evaporator, pump system that regular fridges are. Another thing that's cool, but entirely off topic is acoustic levitation, but it'd neither add to smallness nor convenience of the tap. You have a 3d printer at the hackerspace, so use it, but remember that if coca cola uses the design, they'll want to injection mold it. If a part can't be injection molded or stamped from sheet metal, think of some other way to do it. After all, consider that one of the engineers judging it might as well be the engineer who has to make it mass producable. You might also, before the competition, go to a local fast food joint and snoop around their machine, ask what problems crop up most with it, etc. The machines coke will provide you will most likely be factory condition, and you won't be able to tell where there's wear, where liquid dries and where dust settles. Right now I'm imagining a unibody, 25x15x20 quader which takes collapsible pouches of drink concentrate along with CO² pressure cartridges and a water line/water tank (could you use the CO² pressure to further compress the water whilst simultaneously cooling it using a thermoacoustic element, thus leading to carbonation? I'm thinking of a CO² jet compressor kind of setup) that is easy to fill, easy to clean and hard to break. Use capacive touch on the panel by the way, you gotta have a microcontroller in there anyways, so those couple of pins won't hurt too much. You can use a ir diode couple in the base to detect a glass.

Tichy2• 13 years ago

I'd design it like a Cobra to stress the fact that Soda is toxic... To each their own, but I like my hackathons to be about bettering the world.

gbaygon• 13 years ago

"Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison."

Overconsumption may be the problem, i treat soda like a candy and drink one glass once/twice a week.

n3rdy• 13 years ago

Moderation is good. Wouldn't recommend drinking candy though.

Tichy2• 13 years ago

It's designed to induce overconsumption (sugar+salt).

Taylorious• 13 years ago

Sweet delicious wonderful poison mmmm... I love Coke and other pops. I try to limit my intake though. I drink a lot of Yerba Mate tea too, and that supposedly has links to cancer (what doesn't these days). So I'm not going to worry too much about the health risks of pop.

10k is a pathetic prize though. Come on, I bet Coke spends more than that on dining out for their corporate leaders.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

It's a huge prize by hackathon standards... how much would you think is reasonable for a team of 2-3 for a weekend of work?

untog• 13 years ago

It's interesting to see Coca-Cola embracing this- I attended a hackathon they organised with Spotify last year and had a great time. It's particularly pleasing to see that the terms of the prize are very upfront here- they will pay you $10k for your prototype and IP. You are free to walk away.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

Yeah. We (Hacker Dojo) worked with them extensively on these terms, and we're really pleased how flexible and understanding they have been. It has been very impressive to see such a large company listen.

knodi• 13 years ago

10k is kind of a small prize for something like this.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

Show me a weekend hackathon with half as big a prize pot.

swang• 13 years ago

Are those hackathons sponsored by one of the largest corporations in the world, one that is asking you to revolutionize a product for pennies on the dollar?

It is essentially a corporate takeover of the hackathon without understanding of it at all. Most sponsored hackathons are, "Hey write for our API, here is food and $2K and some t-shirts."

Coca-cola is just hitching on the whole notion of the hackathon, hoping someone is willing to work for cheap on something that can probably bring them a billion if it all works out.

Edit: I should probably note that its their event and they have the right to set the prizes, but man, $10K is low for something that can earn Coca-cola a lot of money.

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

>$10k for a weekend's worth of work seems rather excessive.

michaelbuckbee2• 13 years ago

Last year StartNorfolk (A startup weekend in Norfolk VA) had cash prizes of 15, 10 and 5 thousand dollas for the first through third place winners.

rollo_tommasi2• 13 years ago

The Coca Cola Company pulled in nearly fifty billion dollars of revenue last year. They can afford to hire some industrial designers.

These kind of corporate hackathons are just scams designed to allow the company to take advantage of hundreds or thousands of hours of skilled labor in exchange for pocket lint. It's ultimately detrimental for everyone trying to make an actual living in the field.

Don't work on spec.

EDIT: You will also have to pay for using the 3D printer! Marvelous.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

And yet nobody objects when Facebook runs a hackathon like this? Or is the food industry magically held to different standards than the tech industry?

Evbn• 13 years ago

What hackathon? You can run your own business in FB APIs, not just hand them over to FB.

sukuriant2• 13 years ago

Except it

    * Gives participants resume boosters
    * Gives people direction on what to build in their spare time
    * Gives a common goal for those that feel like it
    * Offers college students some money (because it's probably not a well-employed 
       industrial designer that's going to win, because they aren't the ones
       participating)
    * Gets new ideas on the table, because cross-discipline innovation is where some
       of the most novel innovation can be found
    * Gets community feedback in the form of tangible products
    * Can be used to scout new talent

roc• 13 years ago

* Buys more than $10,000 worth of press.

rollo_tommasi2• 13 years ago

The first half of those points is the same fuzzy horseshit rolled out to defend unpaid internships.

That new ideas, informed feedback, and talent are valuable assets is obvious, so why should you hand them over for (virtually) free? That only devalues the value of the skills, training, and experience required to arrive at those insights.

drewtemp• 13 years ago

1. How so? I participated and won this hackathon is a resume booster? How does that compare with actual paid work from a client?

2. Getting a client and working on a paid project gives me plenty of direction as to what to build in my spare time.

3. What?

4. You're only getting money if they think your idea is best. One person/group wins, not everyone. You could have been doing something with guaranteed pay, not spec work.

5. Sure, you get new ideas on the table, but that doesn't mean they're good ideas. Not to mention you're giving away free ideas.

6. You're not really getting feedback from the community. You're getting it from the corporate sponsor.

7. No. They'll simply award the winner(s) $10k for IP and off they go. A win for the company.

rrhyne• 13 years ago

Saw a digital one in San Diego recently. It had a touch screen and allowed you to make your own flavors of lots of brands of soda.

Vanilla coke, orange coke, vanilla sprite, peach Fanta, etc.

The sodas it produced were predictably terrible.

bluehat14• 13 years ago

Come make a better one then :p

joezydeco3• 13 years ago

Word I hear in the foodservice industry is that Pepsi is dying for a Freestyle-like device. Coke cornered the important pieces of the technology and shut everyone else out.

Think of a way to get Pepsi, Dr Pepper, and 7-11 back in the game and you'll do a lot better than $10K.

michaelbuckbee2• 13 years ago

I think you're referring to a CocaCola Freestyle, which was made with technology from Dean Kamen [1].

I'm actually like the Freestyle as you can get a Diet Coke with just a little bit of cherry in it (which is delicious).

1 - http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2009/id20091...

AdamTReineke• 13 years ago

That would probably be a Coke Freestyle machine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Freestyle

learc83• 13 years ago

My cofounder made most of the button badges for the UI at his last job (as well as doing some of the product testing). He kept telling me he was working on awesome at coke, but he couldn't tell me what it was until they publicly announced it..

seivan3• 13 years ago

Would not support a company that peddles carbonated sugary junk. It's to blame for the obesity. Period.

mrtron• 13 years ago

Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?

seivan3• 13 years ago

I mean selling stuff that isn't changing the world is fine. As long as it's not for the worse.

Coca cola is worse than say pot. It rots your teeth and your insides. There is no value in it. Yet they sell it and people buy it. It's dangerous.

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

How absurd, would you blame Ford for deaths that result from street racing?

Overindulgence, like unsafe vehicle operation, is on the user.

DanBC• 13 years ago

If Ford had a $2.5billion[1] advertising program encouraging people to take part in street racing then yes, I might well hold them partly responsible for street racing deaths.

Especially if the budget for public health education is tiny.

[1] 2007, according to this source (http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/10/what-top-brands-spen...)

solistice3• 13 years ago

I am incapable of understanding some happening. (Coke is bad for you. Coke sells well) I shall therefore apply conspirationalization to it, thereby finding an explanation for it. (Ergo, Coke is controlling the public using mass media to sell massive quatities of unhealthy products). Instead of looking for other reasons why a coke drinker might drink coke (I think it's delicious, and I don't gain weight from it due to a slow metabolism, just as an example), you're assuming mind control. I'm unsure whether you hypothesis would hold up to occam's razor because I don't think that's the nearest explanation.

Note: This is directed towards everyone who assumes coke brainwashed us into soda consumption, so I started generalizing a little

pdeuchler3• 13 years ago

When was the last time you heard Goldman Sachs rent out a room, provide pizza, and give 10k to whoever can improve on their strategies the best? Oh, but they're providing test data for free!

Kraft is actually renting out a ballroom in SF for anyone who wants to improve their cheese recipe. You get 10k if you can make a better mac and cheese than Kraft! You'll get a gold star on your resume while we make an extra 13 cents per packet sold (on a scale of billions a year).

It probably cost Coca-Cola 10k to bring the consultant who thought of this idea. If they truly wished to repay people for bringing immense value to their business they would offer them upwards of a $1M USD, not less than your average car.

Coke nearly invented the modern day soft drink industry, and milk that cow to the tune of billions a year. Yet apparently if you beat them at their own game you only get 10k. And your IP taken. And probably a gag agreement.

Seems a little unfair, doesn't it?

bluehat14• 13 years ago

...you want $1M for a weekend of work?

pdeuchler3• 13 years ago

That's kind of the crux of the problem, isn't it?

If I am able to improve the vending machine (one of the most ubiquitous appliances in the US, at least) in a weekend don't I deserve something of that magnitude?

On the other hand, if I can improve on the vending machine, what makes you think I'm going to spend my weekend doing it for 10k?

gotofritz• 13 years ago

That's cheap - 10K won't even pay a 10th of the pitching costs for the kind of agencies they usually deal with

hedgie• 13 years ago

who wants to drink from the FIRE HOSE?

The Coca-Cola Company offers $10K Prize to Re-Imagine the Soda Fountain

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