Coffee-Fueled Car

The Carpuccino, built by the team at the BBC science show Bang Goes the Theory, runs on coffee grounds. These are burned and the resulting carbon monoxide powers the car:

The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee – the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.

The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1,820, or between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.

Link, Via: Fast Company | Photo: The Daily Mail, Via: Neatorama

Coffee Can Clock

“This build is by Florinc from the Wise Time With Arduino blog. He though that a coffee can might make a great enclosure for an alarm clock. Lucky for us, this clock almost looks like a piece of art. It has these gigantic LEDs that are just so neat to have around. The electronics inside are based on the Wiseduino, an arduino clone with a real time clock on board. An LED matrix sits on top of it. Sounds pretty simple, right?” LINK, Via: Youtube

Having a cup of coffee with coffee artist Karen Eland

Karen has been a creator since childhood, but a portrait class at age 14 unexpectedly propelled her into an art career. Her love for coffee was born in the late Kaldi’s Coffeehouse in New Orleans, where she would go everyday to sketch her fellow French Quarter locals while sipping a black coffee with a dash of nutmeg on top.

After moving back home to Tulsa, Oklahoma, she was introduced to the joys of top-quality espresso at Nordaggio’s Coffee, and finally the link between coffee and art connected when she began painting with it.

Soon she learned the art of espresso itself by becoming a barista, though art is now her full-time job. Painting in coffee is a refreshing break from Karen’s work in oils, watercolor, and pencil. LINK

Don’t miss Karen’s Website!

Coffee PC = Computer + Coffeemaker

Tim Quax of ByteMods combined a PC with a coffeemaker to make this Coffee PC case mod. Best of all, the coffeemaker is controlled by software:

The relay gets it’s power from a molex connector on the power supply; a small amount however, just enough to not flip the relay. Second connection to the relay is a cable to the COM port on the PC. Thirdly, the relay is hooked up to the power cable to the PSU that powers the coffee maker. I wrote a script in Visual Basic Scripting, that uses a module to enable the COM port on the PC. The power on the COM connection is enough to flip over the relay, thus giving the coffee maker it’s much needed power, which makes the coffee maker do it’s thing. The script enables the PC to make coffee with the push of a button!

Link, Via: Neatorama

Creative Ad: Mickey D Wraps a Lamp Post

As part of a national campaign promoting McDonald’s restaurants, a downtown Vancouver lamp post appears to pour coffee into a giant cup on the sidewalk. At the time, McDonald’s was giving away free small cups of its brew for a two-week period, in an effort to attract new breakfast customers. The post was wrapped in brown vinyl to resemble poured coffee, while an oversized carafe was attached to the end. Way to give people an experience! LINK