TheEnforcer
07-14-2005, 01:06 PM
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/a..._21798707.shtml (http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local_21798707.shtml)
Ashwaubenon grad’s invention fills beer glass in 2 seconds flat
By Richard Ryman
rryman@greenbaypressgazette.com
Wisconsin boy builds better beer tap. Who’d a thunk it? Matt Younkle, Chicago resident, Ashwaubenon High School graduate and inventor of the TurboTap, is sitting on top of the world because he realized that the best way to pour a beer was from the bottom of the glass. Quickly.
More importantly, he figured out how to do it without a lot of expensive computer chips and electronic do-dads. Just stainless steel and physics.
The TurboTap, in use at Wrigley Field and two other sports stadiums, pours beer faster, better and more efficiently than traditional taps, says Younkle, whose company, Laminar Technologies Inc., is making a push to expand its markets.
Younkle, 31, the son of Wayne and Mary Ann Younkle of Ashwaubenon, was a Green Bay Press-Gazette Academic Team member in 1992. He first conceived of his better tap while a computer science and electrical engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It won him a $10,000 prize in an invention contest — and 2 seconds of fame in a Jay Leno monologue — but the prize for getting his beer dispenser into sports venues, restaurants and bars across the United States would be a lot bigger.
He’s talked to the Packers about getting TurboTap into Lambeau Field — with 1,128 taps, it’s likely the sports world’s largest purveyor of beer — and with several chain restaurants and bars.
“We launched around the end of last year. Our first customer was Gund Arena in Cleveland,” he said.
The TurboTap addresses two issues: slow pour time and beer sales running down the drain as excess foam. Under the proper conditions, TurboTap can fill a glass in 2 seconds and a pitcher in 8. And it can add six extra servings — and more profit — per keg by controlling the foam.
Curt Radle of Levy Restaurants, director of operations for concessions at Wrigley Field, liked the TurboTap the minute he saw it demonstrated.
“This simplifies the whole process,” he said. “If you follow the instructions, there is less of an opportunity to commit an error with TurboTap than with a conventional system.”
Younkle’s been working on his project, off and on, for a decade, and he assumed he was onto something big.
“I always had confidence I would see it through to the end, whether that was a good ending or a bad ending,” he said.
It’s looking pretty good right now, as it usually does through the bottom of the glass.
==================================
Now that is an invention that makes life a little better for the world!! :)
Ashwaubenon grad’s invention fills beer glass in 2 seconds flat
By Richard Ryman
rryman@greenbaypressgazette.com
Wisconsin boy builds better beer tap. Who’d a thunk it? Matt Younkle, Chicago resident, Ashwaubenon High School graduate and inventor of the TurboTap, is sitting on top of the world because he realized that the best way to pour a beer was from the bottom of the glass. Quickly.
More importantly, he figured out how to do it without a lot of expensive computer chips and electronic do-dads. Just stainless steel and physics.
The TurboTap, in use at Wrigley Field and two other sports stadiums, pours beer faster, better and more efficiently than traditional taps, says Younkle, whose company, Laminar Technologies Inc., is making a push to expand its markets.
Younkle, 31, the son of Wayne and Mary Ann Younkle of Ashwaubenon, was a Green Bay Press-Gazette Academic Team member in 1992. He first conceived of his better tap while a computer science and electrical engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It won him a $10,000 prize in an invention contest — and 2 seconds of fame in a Jay Leno monologue — but the prize for getting his beer dispenser into sports venues, restaurants and bars across the United States would be a lot bigger.
He’s talked to the Packers about getting TurboTap into Lambeau Field — with 1,128 taps, it’s likely the sports world’s largest purveyor of beer — and with several chain restaurants and bars.
“We launched around the end of last year. Our first customer was Gund Arena in Cleveland,” he said.
The TurboTap addresses two issues: slow pour time and beer sales running down the drain as excess foam. Under the proper conditions, TurboTap can fill a glass in 2 seconds and a pitcher in 8. And it can add six extra servings — and more profit — per keg by controlling the foam.
Curt Radle of Levy Restaurants, director of operations for concessions at Wrigley Field, liked the TurboTap the minute he saw it demonstrated.
“This simplifies the whole process,” he said. “If you follow the instructions, there is less of an opportunity to commit an error with TurboTap than with a conventional system.”
Younkle’s been working on his project, off and on, for a decade, and he assumed he was onto something big.
“I always had confidence I would see it through to the end, whether that was a good ending or a bad ending,” he said.
It’s looking pretty good right now, as it usually does through the bottom of the glass.
==================================
Now that is an invention that makes life a little better for the world!! :)