Our longhaired friend Greg was planning a Jesus-themed birthday party, and people joked about a cool possible prop: a machine that would seemingly convert water to wine. “Hey!” we thought. “We can do that!”
So we got to work, while the others just dreamed. A week before the party, we obtained a ceramic-crock water dispenser, sprinkler valves, aquarium pumps, and assorted PVC fittings. We made a glorious mess nearly every time we tried to create the illusion, because we would inadvertently start a siphon that we couldn’t stop.
At the last minute before the party, we made it work, but it wasn’t pretty. The wine container sat on a shelf behind the cooler while the guts of the system sat on the floor —all of it draped with sheets, making it obvious that some shenanigans were taking place. The partygoers were still impressed, and the effect was certainly delivered. But with our improved intuitions about fluid dynamics, we vowed to remake the Water-to-Wine Cooler as the awesome contraption it deserved to be.
We brainstormed by drawing block diagrams until we found a simple design we liked, then we shopped for a water cooler. An important requirement was the ability to electrically capture the mechanical action of the dispense button, covertly. We eventually found a GE water cooler that was perfect. It had hot and cold sides, so we could dispense wine out of the cold side, and for those in the know, room-temperature water from the hot side. We figured we could finish the project that same day; it ended up taking a couple weekends.
For the gurgling effect, we tried pumping air into the water bottle, without letting any water flow out. But we quickly saw that the excess pressure would have no place to go, unless we put a small vent in the top of the bottle — and if we did, water would back-flow through the air pump and start a siphon. Again.
Our solution was to hide an identical water bottle below, for the top one to drain into. This lets the water level decrease over the course of the party, which is more realistic. When the water gets low, you just swap the bottles, and you’re back in business. For easy during-party maintenance, we added a fill port for the wine and LED indicators to notify us if something needs attention.
The finished Water-to-Wine Cooler is indistinguishable from a normal water cooler, and we can stand at a distance and chuckle as our unsuspecting friends go from shock, to bewilderment, to amusement.
W2W Design
In the unmodified GE cooler, the inverted jug on top empties into a reservoir with two pipes coming out, one to the refrigeration unit and the other to the heating element. We rerouted one pipe directly to the hot water tap, and the other one to a gravity valve that controls flow to the second jug hidden inside the bottom of the cooler.
We also added a plastic reservoir that holds the wine for dispensing, a switch triggered by the cold water button, and the electronics and hydraulics to translate a button press into a simultaneous draining of water into the lower jug, and pumping of wine up into the cold-water tap.
Control comes from an ATmega AVR microcontroller development board with 4 relay outputs. The inputs to the board are a small switch triggered by the cold water tap, a water-empty float switch, and a wine-empty float switch. On the output side, 2 relays control the water drain valve solenoid and the pump that dispenses the wine. The board also controls 3 LEDs, swapped in for the GE cooler’s original status LEDs, which flash to show that the software is working and indicate empty water and empty wine inside.
Finally, a wine-full float sensor connects directly to an LED that shines through a small hole in back, bypassing the microcontroller, to let you know when to stop pouring refill wine. The W2W has a lot going on inside, but after you remove the compressor and heater from inside the cooler body, and if you use a 3-gallon jug in the bottom instead of a 5-gallon, it all fits.
The result? A miraculous illusion where water glugs down from the bottle to emerge mysteriously from the spigot as wine. To throw your own sacrilegious party, check out these complete build instructions.
Downloads
Grab our Water to Wine (W2W) code for the AVR microcontroller: https://github.com/partyrobotics/water-to-wine or git@github.com:partyrobotics/water-to-wine.git
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This is really neat, but an aquarium pump is probably inappropriate for this use. What you really want is a peristaltic pump (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump). This avoids introducing impurities from the pump into the wine, avoids the issue of having wine sit on the impeller from use to use, and makes keeping this thing sanitary much easier.
Actually, you were making it too complicated. All you need is three jugs, three two hole stoppers, tubing and a valve. The inverted supply jug has a tube from its stopper through the stopper of the reciever jug to the bottom. The stopper in the reciever jug has a tub for air to the stopper in the wine jug. The wine jug stopper has a tube from its bottom to the wine outlet.
Air enters the water supply jug and water flows down to the water reciever jug where it forces air into the wine jug to force the wine to flow out into the glass. The valve can either control air flowing into the water supply jug or wine flowing out of the wine jug. No electricity is needed.
As a frame have a fake archeologist claim to have found a parchment in a cave in Isreal describing how to do the trick.
Actually, the wine jug outlet valve is better because you can have three valves serving a choice of red, white or rose wine at will, just have three jugs in paralell for the air to flow into on the shelf just below the water source jug.
The W2W project really hit the nail on the head. Now my brother-in-law wants to have a Mohammed-themed party and says he’s going to wear a fake suicide bomber vest made with his iPhone and some paper towel tubes painted red. I told him that was pretty harsh, but I’ll bet Make readers can come up with something equally hilarious.
Your idea is the best Van! Too bad Make only has Jesus insults to offer – they lack your artistic courage when it comes to Mohammed.
Jesus was definitely a Maker when he made water into wine. He also had something better: “If you knew the gift of God… you would have asked him and he would have given you living water… whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.”
it seems a little silly to me the way the had it. have the “cold” side dispense the water and the “hot” side that has a red button dispense the red wine.
Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iphone
and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so she can
be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now broken and she has 83 views.
I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!
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