Powering Your Cell Phone Could Be a Walk in the Park

[gatorboy]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=powering-cell-phone-battery

Exercise may soon do more for you than tighten up your sagging muscles. Advances in biomechanical engineering could use energy generated while walking, hiking or running to power any device requiring portable power, including night-vision goggles and other battery-operated devices used by soldiers as well as robotic prosthetic limbs, cell phones and computers in remote locations where no other energy sources are available.

A team of researchers at the Simon Fraser University (S.F.U.) Locomotion Laboratory in Burnaby, British Columbia, are studying the amount of energy that can be generated by 3.5-pound (1.6-kilogram) aluminum and steel knee braces worn while walking or running. Volunteers, wearing a brace strapped on each leg, generated about five watts of electricity per person during a recent experiment, enough power, researchers say, to run 10 cell phones concurrently and twice that needed to keep a computer running (something useful in developing regions of Africa where electricity is scarce). They report that one brace-wearing subject generated 54 watts of power by running in place.

The best area to place a device for harnessing human energy is near a joint, because this is where the muscles—the body's power source—work hardest, says Max Donelan, Locomotion Lab director and an assistant professor at S.F.U.'s School of Kinesiology. "There's a long history of human power generation using hand cranks and bikes, but these require your dedicated attention, so you don't do it for very long." The key to energy harvesting is extracting the energy from the body's natural movement and, aside from breathing, very few unconscious muscle movements are more automatic than the action of walking.

[hlthe2b]

1. So, finally, we join the Flintstones?

LOL

[hlthe2b]

2. oops double post

Yabba Dabba Doo!

[angstlessk]

3. IF I had to peddle to power my internet connection I could compete with Twiggy

I love the idea of people powered ANYTHING!!!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Check out this water pump.....

Here is Gabina who states, "When you need help, and no one will give it, you help yourself." Help she did, not only herself but her village, using her ingenuity to convert an old bicycle into a pump that brings water up from a well when pedaled.

[malaise]

5. Lovely pix n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

6. People in the "Third World"...

...do some amazing things with bicycles.

Here is a blender...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. Here is a see saw that does something interesting....

[ColbertWatcher]

9. ???

[HysteryDiagnosis]

11. Water pump....

[ColbertWatcher]

12. That's what I figured, but...

...there might have been something else just out of frame.

Thank you.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Welcome..... imagine if "roads" could convert solar energy into

electricity, then power street lights and feed the rest into the grid. Everyone is worried about acreage and all that.. why couldn't roads be fitted with the right stuff to... hey, wouldn't it be cool if roads could put charge back into vehicles that were parked on them or driving above them through some sort of transmission medium?? Now wouldn't that be cool??

[ColbertWatcher]

14. What about...

...all those people cycling at gyms!?

That's just wasted energy right there!

They're pedaling, but the bikes are not connected to anything!

They could power the poor part of town!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. Heh.... funny that.... I need to go pedal the telly. Screen is

getting dark... heh.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. They've been using locomotion to power pocket watches for 150 years.

Give or take.

How much power do cell phones really need?

[ColbertWatcher]

10. ! WITCH! WITCH! n/t