Remember that potato clock you made for your high school science fair? Apparently, the bar has been raised quite a bit. Ann Makosinski, a 15 year old student from Canada, made a flashlight for her science fair project – a flashlight powered entirely by the body heat of the hand holding it. To be fair to the rest of us, though, this wasn’t any old science fair; this was the Google Science Fair, a global competition that brings out the best and brightest in the 13 to 18 age range.

Makosinski used Peltier tiles to create the flashlight. These tiles produce electricity when they are heated on one side and cooled on the other. A temperature difference of just five degrees is enough to power the LED bulb on the Hollow Flashlight. When the ambient temperature is colder, the flashlight will receive more power from the user’s body heat and provide more light. The average amount of electricity generated by palm heat was about 57 milliwatts in tests, and only about half a milliwatt is required to light the LED.

The Peltier tiles are arranged around a hollow aluminum tube – hollow so that the inside can receive air that will cool the backs of the tiles. In tests, the flashlight worked for around 30 minutes, but its useful time could vary widely depending on ambient temperatures. If the flashlight were ever to be mass produced for sale, Makosinski says that she would make some tweaks to her prototype design to make the light more durable and efficient.

Part of Makosinski’s inspiration for the project was her desire to reduce the use of disposable batteries. These single-use power sources are toxic and can leak harmful chemicals into the ground. But her invention can also be priceless in parts of the world where access to electricity is scarce. The inventor’s interest in harvesting sustainable energy that would ordinarily be wasted won her a $25,000 scholarship from Google.

The post Best + Brightest: Hollow Flashlight Runs on Your Body Heat first appeared on Gajitz.

What if The Matrix was right and we are all just biological power sources? The actual physics quoted in the movie aren’t accurate – the human body doesn’t generate “more electricity than a 120-volt battery” – but lots of bio-powered gadgets have shown us that the body can be used as a power source.

Industrial design graduate student Naomi Kizhner has designed a suite of purely conceptual bio-powered jewelry that harnesses existing bodily processes to create energy. The project is called Energy Addicts.

Although the designer is vague about what this energy might be used for, she does emphasize that our natural resources are depleting rapidly. At some point, it may become necessary to harness energy from biological sources in a harmless (though super creepy) manner.

All of the jewelry in the series is parasitic in nature and requires no effort on the part of the wearer. The E-pulse Conductor plugs into the spine via a pair of sharp pincers, drawing power from the user’s nerve activity. Blinker fits over the bridge of the nose like the bridge of a pair of eyeglasses, gathering energy every time the wearer blinks.

Blood Bridge, by far the most disturbing piece, is equipped with two needles that allow a human’s blood stream to pass through a “bridge” containing a waterwheel (blood wheel?) that turns to generate energy. Not to worry – these designs aren’t going to be produced anytime soon. But the designer does bring up some interesting ideas for using the energy we already generate to power the devices of the future.

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It may seem surprising to people in the western world, but hundreds of millions of people still wash their clothes the old-fashioned way: in a stream or bucket. It’s hard work that takes several hours from start to finish, but it’s the only choice in much of the world. Designers Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You created the GiraDora as a way to simplify the act of clothes washing and drying.

The GiraDora looks a little like a tall beverage cooler, but inside is a smaller bucket and an agitator. After loading up some laundry, soap, and water, the user sits on the lid of the GiraDora and uses a foot pedal to churn the agitator. No electricity is needed – this machine runs on pure human power. When the washing is done, the GiraDora transforms into a spin dryer.

While doing laundry seems like a small thing to those of us who are able to accomplish it with machines every day, it isn’t as easy for people who don’t have access to machines or reliable electricity. The GiraDora increases efficiency and cuts down on the number of health problems related to spending hours every week doing laundry. The device was an entry in the Dell Social Innovation Challenge.

At a cost of $40, the simple machine is still beyond the means of many people who need it. But as the inventors point out, is also presents an opportunity for the owners to earn extra income by doing laundry for friends and neighbors. The GiraDora team wants to test their device in several disadvantaged communities in South America, then continue testing in India. The overall goal is to get the GiraDora into the hands – and under the feet – of one million users.

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Public transportation is enough to make some people want to go home and never leave again. Buses – and particularly bus stops – are not the friendliest of places, but a cute marketing campaign for Duracell makes waiting for the bus a positively warm and fuzzy experience.

In Canada, in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record, Duracell installed heaters in some bus shelters. But there was a catch: in order to activate the heaters, bus stop patrons had to complete a circuit by connecting the two sides of the shelter. The shelter walls were too wide for one person to reach both sides – so people waiting at the stop had to cooperate.

In order to connect the two sides and activate the heaters, the folks in the bus shelter held hands. The circuit was complete and the bus waiters got to warm up – and maybe they managed to make a small human connection in the process. The campaign is intentionally a bit sappy, but the technology behind the bus stop warmers is certainly admirable – and very memorable.

The post Cold Canadian Bus Stops are Heated by Human Connections first appeared on Gajitz.

This conceptual design would reward you with a charged-up phone battery for doing something you’re doing already anyway: using the touchscreen. Designer Chin-Po Tsai came up with a thin film that goes over a touchscreen to generate energy for the device.

Simply by moving your finger around after installing the Energy Touch you are charging your cell phone. The film has a wire conductor that connects to your phone’s USB port, using a micro nanometer layer to generate power. If it’s ever produced, it would come in a variety of sizes to fit most of your touchscreen devices.

The designer doesn’t share many details about exactly how the technology would work, but his idea is an exciting one. If it isn’t possible with today’s technology, we could definitely see it becoming a reality in the near future. How cool would it be to notice that after playing your favorite game, you’ve managed to charge your phone rather than kill the battery?

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