Wouldn't it be neat if you had a car, but instead of a trunk, it had an ice cream maker. And you could just put in the ingredients as you begin your trip, and the kinetic energy from the vehicle would rotate the tumbler, and by the time you arrived at your destination, you'd have a trunkful of ice creamy goodness!

Yeah, that'd be neat.
-- nihilo, Jun 19 2006

Making ice cream http://www.amazon.c...0?v=glance&n=284507
This is how they did it, before cars. [nihilo, Jun 19 2006]

view: number of ideas by every halfbaker http://www.halfbake...s=3:i=:t=HB_20Users
for UB
view created by Steve DeGroof. Warning takes a while to load. [xaviergisz, Jun 20 2006]

Something like this? http://tinyurl.com/zk9oa
Just add refrigeration. [egbert, Jun 20 2006]

In retrospect, it may make more sense to have an ice cream maker on your bike. So you pedal and make ice cream. You burn fat calories, and then you eat frozen ones.
-- nihilo, Jun 19 2006


Why not? In the book "Travels with Charlie", (his poodle) by John Steinbeck, the author set up a bungee cord bucket to wash his clothes. The constant jostling was like the agitator to a washing machine, and it worked. Same thing here.
-- Rm Brz, Jun 19 2006


I don't think it would need to take up the entire trunk (unless you're having a very larege ice cream eating event).
-- BJS, Jun 19 2006


Don't tell me you don't have a lot of THOSE!
We throw I.C.E.E.s every weekend. Twice on Sunday.
-- nihilo, Jun 19 2006


"If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain."

good ole Dr Nick.

Oh yeah, I like ice cream. I like cars. I like this idea.

+
-- Custardguts, Jun 20 2006


Of my 26 ideas thus far, only 4 pertain to food -- and that includes "Gourmet Man Milk", which is a bit of a stretch ... in more ways than one.

That amounts to about 15.4%, which, the reader will note, is conspicuously less than "all".

Admittedly I did have two of those food ideas today. So maybe I skipped lunch. And maybe I like junk food.
In prodigious quantities.
In lieu of *actual* food.
Maybe.
-- nihilo, Jun 20 2006


Aw, I can teach you to count, Bubby. All you had to do was ask.
-- nihilo, Jun 20 2006


Oh, sit down, both of you... most people are here to read about ideas - and I quite like this one, unusual though it is - not to come across "who's got the biggest ego" contests.
-- david_scothern, Jun 20 2006


Besides, there's no contest as long as I'm here. I wish there was a way to capitalize the 'I' even more to signify my greatness.
-- notmarkflynn, Jun 20 2006


The ice cream maker needs to conserve the vehicle's kinetic energy [read: more complicated]. Automobiles already waste too much energy. Ice cream makers need some sort of rotating/agitated container which the ingredients will be placed.

A solenoid will engage a clutch connecting the container's eccentric drive shaft to the vehicle's rear wheels or axle (depending on application). The solenoid will be governed by a microcontroller.

The microcontroller will know how long the ingredients have been agitated, and it will know when the vehicle's brake lamps are illuminated (this wiring already exists in the rear of the car). When the vehicle operator depresses the brake switch, the clutch will engage, the assembly will spin until the microcontroller shuts off power when sufficient agitation has occurred to create ice cream. At the same time, the mass of the rotating container will provide a tiny bit of help decelerating the vehicle.

One downside is highway trips...if the braking system isn't used the container will not spin, and no ice cream will be created. For this, a dash mounted switch could be used.

The second downside is that the vehicle must be in motion while braking, meaning you could not park the car and make ice cream. A hand crank would be a decidedly low-tech fix for this issue. Or the user could drive back and forth, slowly engaging the brake to come to each stop.
-- ed, Jun 20 2006


Instead of motors in wheels, maybe ice cream makers in wheels? Some sort of slip ring arrangement to get electrical current to a heat pump for freezing, and the rotation and suspension bounce will agitate the icecream perfectly.
-- david_scothern, Jun 20 2006


Just to help things along, [UnaBubba] has 535 ideas as of this morning, [nihilo] has 26 and [notmarkflynn] 59.

What's that smell?

By the way, [david_scothern] has 24. Me? just 2.
-- methinksnot, Jun 20 2006


Further to our previous annotation regarding number of ideas from a select group of users, we would like to expand on the statistics for the top ten users by ideas submitted:
1. FarmerJohn 764
2. UnaBubba 535
3. bungston 438
4. po 297
5. DesertFox 292
6. benfrost 281
7. phundug 259
8. hippo 253
9. theircompetitor 223
10. Steve DeGroof 220

Small print: Total number of users 5007, total number of ideas 29143, number of users with only one idea 2573, number of users with more than 100 ideas 33.
Disclaimer: Active users with no ideas were neither counted nor harmed in the compiling of these numbers.

Look, ma, I can count.
-- methinksnot, Jun 20 2006


I dispute 297!

I got A - Z!
-- po, Jun 20 2006


It's not quantity. It's quiddity.
-- nihilo, Jun 20 2006


Dispute all you want. 97.3% of statistics don't lie.
-- methinksnot, Jun 20 2006


I think 59 is a respectable number.
-- notmarkflynn, Jun 21 2006


Hey, that ice cream bucket on the first link used to be made in the town I live in! (sadly most of the woodshops have left town and gone south) .....and besides that, it's about was about 200 degrees in my trunk the other day, so I think that's a bit hot for making ice cream, but I do like david_scothern's idea of making it in the wheels.
-- xandram, Jun 21 2006


I believe they make 12V electric ice cream makers, with the bucket that you freeze before using. Just install a lighter socket in the trunk (boot). Granted, it's using electricity from the alternator, not using the car's kinetic energy, but probably would affect overall efficiency less than a pure mechanical arrangement (not to mention a LOT cheaper to retrofit).
-- whlanteigne, Sep 17 2006



random, halfbakery