Welcome Back to the University of Freezing

I've heard several people say that Gainesville has two seasons: Sumer and Not Summer.  So far, this week definitely falls into the "Not Summer" category with all the cold weather that the polar vortex is sending down to ruin our usually moderate winters.  The good news is that forecasters are expecting Saturday to warm up to 80º...only in Florida.  In the mean time, bundle up and stay warm.

Several days ago, we turned calendars over and celebrated the beginning of the new year.  Monday marked the beginning of a new semester.  The start of both the new year and the new semester present a time where students can make goals or resolutions about the coming semester or year.  Regardless of if your goals are to achieve a greater level of fitness or to earn a 4.0 for the semester, Student Government is here and ready to help.

I am looking forward to an active spring semester and finishing my term as Student Body President as strong as when I took office.  There are a number of things in the works for the spring semester.  First is the Mobile Blue Light Application that Student Government has been working on for some time.  We are expecting to launch the app later this month, so be on the lookout for more information in the coming weeks.

Another one of my primary focuses this semester will be to secure funding for Newell Hall.  Anyone who tried to use the library to study for final exams at the end of last semester is sure to realize that UF is lacking in study space.  Newell Hall will meet the needs of the student body by providing a 24-hour study facility that will provide students with the space and technologic infrastructure that we need to succeed in our classes.

Finally, Student Government is hosting an Open House on the 3rd floor of the Reitz Union this Thursday (tomorrow) from 12:00-3:00.  We will have light refreshments and information about everything we're doing this semester.  I hope to see you there!

Business Spotlight: Spin Chill

Everybody agrees that warm beer sucks. For this week's spotlight, I want to raise awareness about two UF students that hate warm beer so much that they decided to do something about it. Trevor Abbott, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, and Ty Parker, a mechanical engineer who graduated last year, are co-founders of a company called Spin Chill that has designed a product that has the ability to chill a canned beverage must faster than a fridge or a cooler of ice.

Putting a can in a fridge or cooler of ice can take between 10 and 30 minutes to cool to an enjoyable drinking temperature. By using the Spin Chill Chill Bit, a beer can go from room temperature to 32 degrees Fahrenheit in two to three minutes. How? By spinning the container in ice or ice water, convection is introduced to both the inside and outside of the container, thus increasing the rate of heat transfer and cooling the beverage down at a rate of at least 20 times faster than otherwise possible.

Trevor and Ty originally came up with the idea during the summer of 2013 when both traveled to Atlanta, GA for the AngelHack hackathon as a part of the HackerHouse accelerator program that both were involved with.

"Typically hackathons are software based, but Ty and I, having mechanical engineering backgrounds, didn't want to do coding. We were brainstorming ideas at a bar and couldn't come up with much, so we grabbed a case of beer and headed back to our hotel. The case of beer was warm, so we cooled it the quickest way we knew how: by spinning the cans by hand in a bucket of ice water. That's when we decided we were going to invent something that could do that for us. We ended up taking second place at the the Atlanta AngelHack hackathon with it," said Trevor Abbott.

After that weekend, the two came back to Gainesville and got to work on making their idea come to life. They just launched their newest product yesterday, the Beerouette, which is a fully self-contained beer chiller. It can spin cans and bottles and runs off of just four AA batteries. For more information about the awesome new product designed by two of our very own students, check out www.spinchill.com or find the Spin Chill page on Facebook, because everyone agrees that cold beer is the best beer.