Let's see what you come up with

[kevinthenerd]

The only prize I can offer is PWN4G3 over your peers, but let's have a little contest. This is something I've been thinking about for a long time.

Come up with the best re-use of a 20 oz plastic soda bottle. The focus should be as a component of a marketable manufactured product rather than, say, reuse for holding household change. You can't use it for drinks unless you can prove to me it's creative.

The best I could come up with: I've been wondering if they could be used for cheap modular energy storage by holding some kind of specialized cryogenic liquid. Perhaps they could serve as paintball gas canisters or for computer dusting applications.

 

[amdhunter]

Homemade Fleshlight.

 

[TheoPetro]

an insertion device in a special type of movie

 

[FoBoT]

fill for landfills

 

[Mojoed]

Cut it in half and make an orange juice bong for toddlers

 

[imported_LoKe]

I'd make a lung out of it.

 

[dbk]

A bong

 

[DaveSimmons]

From the movie Timebomb (Michael Biehn, Patsy Kensit) I learned it works well as a slilencer, though I've yet to be annoyed enough at someone to try this myself.

 

[Leros]

Melt the top together and use as some kind of flotation buoy. Maybe combined several together in a net.

 

[Jeff7]

From memory:
Put a bolt through the lid, so that it'll extend to within 1" of the bottom. Seal it off with caulk on both sides.
Fill it maybe 2/3 with salt water.
Top it off with motor oil.
Now put a layer of aluminum foil around the outside.

Connect one wire to the bolt, and one to the aluminum foil.

High voltage capacitor.

Charge with high voltage. Enjoy. Don't blame me if you kill anything, or blow it up.


Or fill it with xenon and make a super bright, single-use flashbulb, suitable for those times when you need to illuminate an entire city block.

 

[RapidSnail]

I'd make a barbell.

 

[rezinn]

Melt down into plastic pellets. Make cheap toys. Paint with leaded paint and sell to americans.

 

[coldmeat]

Cut it in half and wear the bottom as a hat.

 

[kinev]

You could make a machine that does your homework for you....oh, wait....that's what ATOT is for.

 

[Flammable]

Originally posted by: kinev
You could make a machine that does your homework for you....oh, wait....that's what ATOT is for.

GG OWN4GE OP?

 

[Alistar7]

Al Gore made all the internets using just one empty can of Pabst, top that....

 

[bonkers325]

make pressurized bottle rockets and launch them at people's windows

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: Flammable

Originally posted by: kinev
You could make a machine that does your homework for you....oh, wait....that's what ATOT is for.

GG OWN4GE OP?

Hardly. I'll be earing by BSME Mechanical Engineering this December. Do you honestly think I'd have a question like this for homework? This is the sort of stuff they ask freshmen in the "intro to engineering" class.

Seriously, I bought a 20 oz Vault on campus, and something screwed up in the machine and I got two. As I was hanging out waiting for a class to start, drinking my second one, I was looking at the first one, pondering deep in thought about how well-made the bottle was. The precision with which it is made is beyond what I can do with my own hand tools, and I am unable to melt PET and re-spin it into such nice shapes. It's such a waste to throw out such a thing, especially considering that recycling into new bottles costs energy and money too. Besides, why would I want it to complete the cycle so I can pay over a buck for that same bottle again?

Then it hit me. I started thinking about how much pressure such a bottle could hold. It's designed to resist the pressure of soda when you shake it, and I started coming up with things like a paint ball gun, a paint sprayer, an air horn, an air-powered dremel tool, etc.

My question really hinges around another question: in what other basic functions, other than holding pressure, does this bottle exceed?

Under pressure and loaded vertically, it has a pretty good specific strength.

I really like the floatation idea. With air inside, they have very low density. I wonder how many tubes of epoxy it would cost me to make myself a boat! Now I just need to come up with a really good CAD model of one of them so I can better visualize the assembly. Maybe I could use it as a frame for tarps and stuff. The possibilities are endless.

Have you ever heard of that guy who built himself a house out of coke cans?

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: bonkers325
make pressurized bottle rockets and launch them at people's windows

I'd rather make PVC rockets out of potassium nitrate and sugar.

 

[jjones]

Throw it on the floor, pour 50 gallons of gasoline and 2 dozen zombies on it and light it on fire for a nice cozy handwarmer in the wintertime. Not recommended for indoor use.

 

[warmodder]

Fill one with water, and tape another one to it opening to opening. Flip it over and you've got a vortex. Market 'em as vortex generators. People will be impressed, amused, and ready to open their wallets.

 

[herm0016]

most soda bottles can hold around 100 psi, i have put a max of about 150 psi in some and they hold, some go boom. we use to build rockets out of them. just add water and compressed air and a way to launch them. they go pretty far, as far as some of my regular model rockets. they are fun when they blow up though.... sends plastic shrapnel everywhere for about 150 feet sometimes. sometimes they just go pop and have a split in the side.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Disclaimer for this post: I'm not really sure if I should be giving anybody reading this any dangerous ideas. Whatever you do is at your own risk. I'm specifically recommending that nobody does this.

I once thought about making the PET version of a Molotov Cocktail. I've made them out of glass, but the trouble with plastic is, of course, that they don't shatter. So my solution is to have a long air hose going to it. You still tie a burning rag to the top, but now the rag is separated to avoid melting the plastic prematurely. Fill the bottle partly with gasoline. I really don't know the optimal mixture off the top of my head for optimal results here but I would guess half-way would be a good starting point for a real show. Compress it with air until it explodes. The high pressure fuel vapors will ignite rapidly once they hit the flame, and the explosion will vaporize and distribute the fuel which should allow very quick mixing of air and fuel, causing a nice explosion rather than your standard Molotov fire. (The increase in the surface area of the fuel is the key.)

 

[DarkThinker]

Cut the top off, and use it as an emergency number 2 deposit container and don't even ask me how I know the idea works, do your own experiments for crap's sake!

 

[kinev]

Originally posted by: kevinthenerd

Originally posted by: Flammable

Originally posted by: kinev
You could make a machine that does your homework for you....oh, wait....that's what ATOT is for.

GG OWN4GE OP?

Hardly. I'll be earing by BSME Mechanical Engineering this December. Do you honestly think I'd have a question like this for homework? This is the sort of stuff they ask freshmen in the "intro to engineering" class.

Seriously, I bought a 20 oz Vault on campus, and something screwed up in the machine and I got two. As I was hanging out waiting for a class to start, drinking my second one, I was looking at the first one, pondering deep in thought about how well-made the bottle was. The precision with which it is made is beyond what I can do with my own hand tools, and I am unable to melt PET and re-spin it into such nice shapes. It's such a waste to throw out such a thing, especially considering that recycling into new bottles costs energy and money too. Besides, why would I want it to complete the cycle so I can pay over a buck for that same bottle again?

Then it hit me. I started thinking about how much pressure such a bottle could hold. It's designed to resist the pressure of soda when you shake it, and I started coming up with things like a paint ball gun, a paint sprayer, an air horn, an air-powered dremel tool, etc.

My question really hinges around another question: in what other basic functions, other than holding pressure, does this bottle exceed?

Under pressure and loaded vertically, it has a pretty good specific strength.

I really like the floatation idea. With air inside, they have very low density. I wonder how many tubes of epoxy it would cost me to make myself a boat! Now I just need to come up with a really good CAD model of one of them so I can better visualize the assembly. Maybe I could use it as a frame for tarps and stuff. The possibilities are endless.

Have you ever heard of that guy who built himself a house out of coke cans?

Naw, still don't buy it. Even with a nick like kevinthenerd there are too many stipulations in your "prompt" for it to be "I was just thinking...." By that, I mean that you put too many restrictions on what we could come up with.

"The focus should be as a component of a marketable manufactured product rather than, say, reuse for holding household change."

That's teacher/project talk right there. If you were really wondering about the creative ways of reusing a 20 oz bottle, why the heck can't I cut it in half and put some change in there? That way we won't use the energy that would be required to make a new one or recycle it. But, that's not "creative" enough, nor does it constitute a "marketable manufactured product".

Also, if your reason for coming up with this question is environmental or financial ("It's such a waste to throw out such a thing, especially considering that recycling into new bottles costs energy and money too. Besides, why would I want it to complete the cycle so I can pay over a buck for that same bottle again?) Then I would think that using it to drink from would be obvious, but, you say we can't use that, either. "You can't use it for drinks unless you can prove to me it's creative"

Now, if you asked "How could I use a 20 oz. bottle to fight zombies in a Mall", then yeah, that's stuff that we waste our time thinking about. In that case, the rocket idea and your Molotov cocktail idea would work. That is how we think (bong, silencer, rockets) and how you yourself think (Molotov cocktail) when not doing homework (i.e. fun). However, a Molotov cocktail isn't exactly "a component of a marketable manufactured product" now is it?

My guess is that you got this assignment in some type of economics or business class that you finally were forced to take the last semester of your senior year. You're confident in your engineering skills, but you are more of a "left brain" engineer (self described nerd) than a "right brain" thinker. That's why you stressed the Creative aspect of the assignment and it is also why you asked on here.

I won't even go into how you automatically assigned any answers you received as having value (because they do to you....your grade) by stating that there is a prize involved (even if it's only PWN4G3). If it was a purely fun/hypothetical question (like the zombies in the mall) then there would be no need for you to explain that there is no prize involved.

To sum up, your BSME Mechanical Engineering will be helpful in using your PIN number at the ATM machine, PM message me if I 'm right (for my own edification - I won't tell), and lastly, do your own homework.