In a previous hub I described how, John Warner Backus, who developed FORTRAN, the first high level computer language once described the motivation behind his work on the development of FORTRAN as laziness.

Prior to FORTRAN and the other high level languages that followed, programming a computer was a slow and tedious task that required the programmer to write the program as a series of number strings.

To escape this drudgery, Backus developed a language that allowed programmers to write a program using more intuitive word commands which FORTRAN then converted to number strings for the computer.

Now a bright young man named John W. Cornwell, who recently graduated with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Duke University, not wanting to have to get up and get a beer while watching TV, has invented a beer launching refrigerator.

Like many great inventions throughout history, the beer launcher as he calls it, began with the age old question of What if? According to Cornwell's web page the question was "What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???" Having clarified the problem, Cornwall then proceeded to spend the next three months and several hundred dollars designing, building and perfecting his dream machine.

The result was a small, dorm style refrigerator that has been modified with a remote controlled beer catapult on top that can fling a can of beer across a room to a couch potato sitting watching the big game on TV. When activated, a small door opens in the top of the refrigerator, a mechanical lift brings up a cold can of beer which is then transferred to the catapult. Using the remote, the operator aims the catapult and launches the beer in the direction of the couch potato's waiting hand. While the launcher is consistently accurate in its aim, the same may not be true of the receiver catching the flying beer can, especially after having consumed a few beers.

A detailed description of the beer launcher, including photos of all of its parts, can be found on Cornwell's BeerLauncher.com website.

A video of the beer launcher in action is also available on the metacafe.com video sharing site.

To read about another of Cornwall's inventions see my Hub entitled A Mentos and Diet Coke Booby Trap