Water Boil Contest

Every Thursday evening after hours, the Lab grabs some cold beverages and hangs out together in our own little nerd-vana. Several weeks ago, this took the form of a contest to see who could bring a cup of water to a rolling boil the fastest. It was little surprise that extreme measures were taken to increase conductivity, reduce heat loss and maximize airflow.


The challenge:

Bring 1 cup of water to a rolling boil using the following items:

a box of matches (box included)
charcoal briquettes (non-instant start, no lighter fluid, just briquettes)
empty olive can (to hold water)
All other energy to be supplied with human power generated during the competition.


Official results:

Emma, Phillip, Zihong 5:40 / 2:50
3ric, Jenny, Joe, Star 9:40 / 6:49 / 4:02
Nanophotonics 7:55 / 7:35
Emma, Ozgur, Shannon 9:00
Nikolai, Jesse 9:27

Unofficial times include Leo & Shieng at 0:28, using a vacuum and an acetone dilution; and Zihong's "Kung Fu Solar Wind Attack" clocking in at .85 seconds.


Congrats to Emma Mullen, Phillip Eckhoff and Zihong Guo for an impressive performance! And a big thanks to Nels Peterson for organizing what is arguably the most popular and well attended Danger Meeting to date. Also a shout out to The Acousticals for providing the video's soundtrack.

For more about Intellectual Ventures Lab and our projects, visit http://intellectualventureslab.com

Category:

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[gulllars]

Instead of using a bicycle tire pump, how effective would it be to mount a fan on a gear powered by the petaling from a bicycle, with a cone (big end on the fan, thin end toward the coal) for increasing air preassure?

With >250W of human labor from petaling to drive the fan, i would guess a 25-30cm diameter fan could do a good job? It would give good sustained air flow.

[IntellectualVentures]

@gulllars Great ideas! If you test them out and post a video response, I'll link to it at the end of the video.

[gulllars]

Also, using a handheld mixer (with a crank for human power) to create a vortex in the water would increase the effective surface area and significantly speed up the heat transfer from metal to water, and even out water temperature. It would reduce boiling time by a decent amount if the heat output from the coal is high.