

The Coca-Cola Company offers $10K Prize to Re-Imagine the Soda Fountain - bluehat
http://www.hackerdojo.com/Re-ImagineTheFountain

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rollo_tommasi
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.

~~~
sukuriant
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

~~~
drewtemp
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.

~~~
solistice
1\. How does dropped out of college to start startup compare to completing
college degree? From the mouths of corporate hiring managers, suprisingly
well. Until we get someone who does these kinds of decisions to comment on
this, both statements are moot. 2\. *paid time. 3\. 2+ guys get together and
do something. Everyone feels the fuzzy feeling of doing something with other
people covering their backs. It's the tech equivalent of jamming. 4\. Yes.
Money is the measuring standard in this thing. I'm a big fan of money, but
it's a means, not the end. 5\. Doesn't mean they're bad ideas either. Also, if
out of fear of bad ideas, we stopped pursuing ideas all together, we would
stand still exactly where we are. 6\. Nor is solving crossword puzzles. It can
still be fun and relaxing/agitating. 7\. If your company doesn't take down the
names of those people who completely reengineered one of your key products in
2 days, I'm very sorry for your company. 8\. Hackathons are fun. I want to sit
with a couple of friends and play with ideas. If you're doing it for the money
or the resume building...you got different priorities.

------
rrhyne
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.

~~~
bluehat
Come make a better one then :p

~~~
joezydeco
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.

------
pdeuchler
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?

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

~~~
pdeuchler
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?

~~~
bluehat
Well, I guess if you have some million dollar idea and the market/human
resources to produce it, you probably should do that this weekend instead.

Keep up your brilliance every weekend and you could retire to some tropical
island of your choice by the end of this month. If your brilliance also
correlates to previous time, I don't know how you have time to write back and
forth with me over HN, you should probably be busy with your billion dollars
or so right now.

The reality is, great ideas take time to produce. If you want to dedicate
years of your life to producing a great idea, go ahead. I wish you good luck.
If you'd like to have a few beers that weekend, meet some cool people, play
with some cool technology, and possibly walk away with five new Macbook Airs
or whatever HN folks would like to spend it on, come party.

~~~
pdeuchler
I think you're missing the point, I'm not attacking HackerDojo or hackathons,
those can be quite fun. For the right reasons. But if someone succeeds in this
task, that invention is worth millions. Coke is offering 10k. That's
exploitation disguised as a "party".

It just feels awfully similar to that guy you kind of know inviting you over
for beers, and then preceding to try and convince you to build his app idea
for a couple hundred bucks and no equity. Even if I wanted to help him, why
would I do it for so little?

It just seems like coke is piling on the "Get those nerds to build X idea and
let us profit off it" train, and the lowball offer isn't helping.

~~~
bluehat
But if you really do succeed in the big ground-changing way, you can decline
the prize money and keep your IP. We specifically worked that into the
contract with them for this reason.

I understand why people are afraid of big companies, and I have certainly seen
the wreckage of these things done wrong, I just don't understand how any of
those fears are founded in reality in the case of this event.

------
untog
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.

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

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

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

~~~
r00fus
Sure, that'd be fine - if they paid everyone $1k, I'm sure tons would jump for
the opportunity.

Remember, the real equation is: 1 weekend of work = (small probability of)
$10k. A whole lot less of a deal.

------
xutopia
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.

~~~
bluehat
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
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?

~~~
bluehat
If you're local, sign up and attend the info sessions on carbonation etc.
Generally though, this is about understanding the technology then repackaging
it for a new place and purpose, so with some business sense you should be able
to hobble along fine.

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

------
Tichy
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
"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
Moderation is good. Wouldn't recommend drinking candy though.

------
rikacomet
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

~~~
solistice
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.

------
hedgie
who wants to drink from the FIRE HOSE?

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

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

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

~~~
DanBC
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...](http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/10/what-top-brands-spend-on-
advertising.html))

~~~
jlgreco
They've certainly spent plenty of money sponsoring racing games, racing
events, and various other racing related things. The connection between cars
and going dangerously fast is not something the automotive industry had
nothing to do with.

If you can't control yourself after seeing _"These CGI polar bears and this
multi-ethnic group of skater kids both like our soda"_ , then that is entirely
on you. ( _Well, on you, or perhaps on your parents who clearly failed to
raise you properly._ ) For anything short of _"More doctors smoke camels"_ , I
really cannot place blame on companies for advertising. I see no evidence of
such deliberate deception in modern soda advertisement.

