The Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest

[number6]

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The Beverage Cooling Contraption Contest
Friday: 11:00 - 14:00
DEF CON Contest Area, Forum Ballroom | in-person

I don't know my gender non-specific guys. It's not funny anymore. We can't stop talking about a cheeto for paying hush money to a busty tortilla chip. Winny Pooh is presatator for life with a hunger for those sweet sweet chips. Off brand doctor evil is threatening to nuke the world on the weekly. And in the plot twist of the year BiBi is going fascist. I keep expecting ol'e Joe to bust out the force lightning and tell me to "give in to my hate". WELL TOO LATE! This year we are going to have a change of pace. I'm going to drink all the beverage! Lord knows I could use it. I'm kidding of course, I'm terribly allergic to hops. It's the greatest irony of all, I can't drink any of the beverage. But our spectators can! And they want that beverage to be COLD! So I need you to help me satisfy their thirst. Their thirst for escape from this mad world.

[ic434]

Same rules as last year guys and gals!

Beverage will come to you in a red solo cup. You must bring the beverage back to me in that cup for judging.

Target temp is 34F or 1C.

General rules remain the same,

• Thou shalt have a DEFCON "badge".

• Thou shalt not have more then 3 people on a team at the table during qualification runs. Larger teams are allowed for setup but only 3 operators during qualifying runs.

• Thou shalt dispose of thine own test fluids.

• Thou shalt not used a commercial pre-built unit. You must build your own contraption

• Thou shalt not adulterate the beverage! No pouring it over ice, no mixing in cold fluids, no pouring over dry ice, no adding liquid nitrogen etc etc..

• Thou shalt not excessively endanger the event. If your contraption is flammable, contains compressed gasses, is otherwise hazardous you will need to explain to me how you have mitigated the risks and I will make a final determination. So please, if flammable, have an extinguisher, if it contains pressurized gasses over a few psi, please have completed a hydro static test of at least 2x times the max expected operating pressure and have a safety relief valve at no more then 1.5x! Note CO2 can go solid in valves when vented so keep that in mind. This is an indoor event, venting hydrogen fluoride is a no go. That said, we have never had to disqualify someone and that will remain a fact so lone as everyone uses common sense! Lets do this!

• Thou shalt have fun! Seriously, don't fuck this one up. Last thing we need is some damn talking ponies showing up and bringing all the bronies to the yard. I lived in Baltimore during the dark years, I don't need that.

Finally, as with every year if you provide me a sub 4 kelvin beer that you chilled at the event you automatically get first place, my eternal love and admiration, and IDK a drone or something. I'll have to figure out the prize for this one on the fly because nobody is actually going to do this. TO NOTE the method must be repeatable, no venting large amounts of helium!

[q00r42]

I didn't see a rule regarding time limits, or bonus points for achieving temperature in less time. Is this taken into consideration at all?

[ic434]

Good point q00r42! I totally forgot to include that in the rules!

Let me clarify.

Time is involved in the score as well as mass, fluid loss, and potability. Basically we are looking at energy removed per second with penalties for not cooling the whole beer or loosing too much beverage to the void. So yes, faster is better and loosing less is better. For example chilling half a beer in half the time isn't equivalent to a whole beer in double that time. This is because not chilling a whole beer has a penalty to it even though the same amount of energy is removed per second.

The weighting of the time vs loss vs other factors is a bit flexible. This is a judged event in that regard. We have chosen this approach to address years when we have only odd contraptions and things like simple time scoring results in a lot of very similar scores. Since there is a lot of hands on the beverage outside of the teams control, a small time difference between teams is in the noise so we will weigh in other factors to try and differentiate in those cases.

In the event we have technical teams going very much head to head in the time domain and we need to get really precise we can and have done that. So don't worry if you are going to bring a super machine, we will make that super "scientific".


The only time limit is the duration of the event. But if it takes over an hour to chill a beverage (not counting the 4k case) you are gonna not win...

That said, for the sub 4k case, you have the whole convention to pull that off.

Hope that clarifies things. I really glad to see someone is interested in the contest and actually reading things I wrote! I hope to see you there. :) If you have any other questions feel free to message me.

[ic434]

Also some of you might be wondering how a lot of teams can have similar scores with different contraptions.

This is because if you freeze a beer in a can the surface area of the can and more importantly the ice buildup in the can become common limiting factors and regardless of how much cooling fluid you have, the interface between that fluid and the beverage is the limit. Just a design tip / consideration. Remember ice in the can / tubing / whatever it is you have, is an insulator and NOT your friend. Beer foam ice is basically Styrofoam and is very good at insulation.