This R2D2 is Capable of Brewing a Dark Roast, Beepboopbeepbeep

Let Star Wars permeate into yet another part of your life, this time via a cute homemade R2D2 coffee machine.

Created by an inventive Instructables user, this oversized coffee maker was made to brew coffee quickly for large dinner parties. The unit uses a tank of water that holds two coffee pots worth of liquid.

Water is poured in through R2D2’s head, and it takes about 5 minutes to get the water hot the first time around, but after that initial batch, the unit has an interesting flow that will save you time between brews. Here’s the science behind it, if you’re so inclined to read up:

So the whole concept behind this was to have a coffee maker that could be used to brew coffee quickly for larger dinner parties that we have from time to time.  A regular coffee pot is just too slow to brew pot after pot as its being emptied so quickly by caffeine crazed guests.  Enter the industrial BUNN type coffee maker.  It uses a tank of water that holds two coffee pots worth.  First you pour in two coffee pots worth of water and turn the unit on.  It takes about 5 minutes to get the water hot the first time around, then it waits for you to add one more pot of cold water, this is when the magic begins.  As you pour cold water into the hopper tank, it descends a down a tube to the bottom of the heated tank.  Now this tank all ready has water in it that is nice and hot.  The cold water which naturally wants to stay on the bottom anyway pushes the heated water up and out an overflow at the top of the tank.  This overflow is connected to a tube which has its end set just below the level at which the hot and cold water find a balance.  As water flows out the tube it creates a siphon effect draining out the hot water from the reserve tank and allowing space for the cold water in the hopper to fill up.  Now the hot water has to go somewhere, so why not channel it into a coffee ground hopper where it brews up a tasty and oh-so quick pot of coffee.  The BUNN coffee units spout is kinda like one of those rain shower heads, where it sprinkles down hot water over all the coffee ground area at once.  This wets out the grinds quickly allowing for a quick brew.  Regular home units trickle it out at insanely slow speeds often inducing madness in morning commuters and small dogs alike.  Finally the large heater element takes very little time to heat up the now cold water in the tank and by the time you have drained the first pot of coffee, and gotten new coffee grinds ready the cycle is ready to start anew, remembering the tank holds two pots worth of hot water so is all ready ahead by one pot.