National Manufacturing Day Hackathon: Home Coffee Roasting

The home coffee roaster concept, known as House Roast, was developed at FirstBuild's inaugural Hack the Home event in the Spring of 2015.  This device enables coffee lovers to roast coffee beans in a standard home convection oven.  The FirstBuild community has been helping us refine the design.  

Check out this video clip detailing the previous hackathon, and the birth of the House Roast project.  This event will give you the opportunity to learn how coffee is roasted, see early design prototypes, then work in teams of 4-6 (assembled in advance or onsite) to design, build, test, and refine the best performing coffee roasting device for an oven.  The key challenges will be maximizing airflow around beans in a convection oven, removing the chaff from beans after the roast, and fabricating the device using equipment available in FirstBuild's microfactory.

The equipment available includes: an Amada 4,000 Watt Laser, Waterjet, Haas CNC Mill, 160 Ton Press, Cincy Press Brake, Injection Molding (small), 3D Printing, Vacuum Casting, Powder Paint, and more...

Agenda

8:30-9:00 - Registration with Coffee and Bagels
9:00-10:00 - Keynote speaker address and Hackathon Mission Overview with Q & A
10:00-4:00 - Designing, Building, and Testing of Entries
12:30-1:30 - Lunch (provided for all registered participants and mentors)
4:00-5:00 - Judging of All Entries
5:00-6:00 - Closing Remarks and Announcement of Winners

How to Win:

The following criteria will be used to judge designs:
- Best coffee roasting performance
- Most consumer-friendly device and process
- Best use of FirstBuild equipment (listed above)
- Lowest cost to manufacture and assemble
- Most creative solution

What's at Stake:

On the day of the Hackathon, FirstBuild will award $750 to the 1st place project and $500 to the 2nd place project.  In addition, entries can be eligible for addititonal prizes through the Roast Coffee in Your Home Oven design challenge.