High-school student Lin Yu-hsieh (林又頡) won a gold medal at the annual British Invention Show last week with a machine that allows coffee lovers to enjoy their coffee at the temperature they want, without sacrificing flavor.
The “temperature adjustable coffee cup” invented by Lin, who is studying machinery at Shin Min High School in Taichung, was favored by the jury in the Young Innovator of the Year, in the under-18 class.
In Taichung yesterday, Lin demonstrated how his innovative design works.
It is a coffee cup able to heat or chill the drink, he said.
Describing how he came up with the idea, Lin said he was in the habit of buying a cup of iced coffee for his coffee-loving mother at a convenience store every morning, but the melting ice cubes always diluted the taste of the coffee.
His desire to have his mother enjoy the coffee at her preferred temperature, without sacrifcing flavor, inspired him to create his prize-winning machine, Lin said.
Over a six-month period, Lin and his instructor Chen Tse-hsiung (陳澤雄), a professor at Tunghai University in Taichung, experimented with several designs without success, before eventually creating a flask equipped with a digital device that allows users to set their preferred temperature for their drink.
The British Invention Show was held in London from Oct. 23 to 26. The event, in its 19th year, drew 100 teams from 15 countries to compete for the awards.
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