Charge Your Phone by Walking - New Invention From 15-Year-Old Genius

[Steven Bogos]

Charge Your Phone by Walking - New Invention From 15-Year-Old Genius

15-year-old Angelo Casimiro has designed "Electricity Generating Footwear" - shoes that can charge your devices just from walking energy.

When I was 15, I was playing Mario Kart 64 and watching Dragonball Z. Angelo Casimiro, of the Philipines, was designing a pair of shoes that can harness the power of your footsteps to charge an electrical device. Casimiro unveiled his invention, the "Electricity Generating Footwear", at the Google Science Fair this year - an event where Google challenges young inventors to come up with fresh new ideas for the future. Casimiro says he got the idea from realizing how many people are walking or running on a daily basis, and that there is a potential untapped source of energy literally right under our feet.

Essentially, his invention works by using the force of a person's footsteps to create energy that is sent to a battery equipped with a USB outlet that can then charge other small electronic devices. While he does admit that it would take around eight hours of jogging to generate only about a quarter of the amount of energy needed to fully charge an iPhone 5, the device could be used for small, low powered devices such as flashlights.

In third-world and developing countries such as Casimiro's home of the Philipines, where many people live in poverty with no proper electrical grids, a light source can be a very precious thing.

Casimiro estimates that the average person takes around 7,000 steps a day - which is more than enough to keep a flashlight, or even a portable radio charged.

He is getting a whole lot of support for his project from online communities, and he hopes to become an engineer in the future.

Source: Rocket News 24 [http://www.gizmodo.jp/2014/06/15_17.html]

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[tdylan]

I hope some corporation doesn't rip off his idea and screw him out of royalties, or screw him in the royalties by tossing him peanuts, while the turn his idea into the new "Beats by Dre." That being "something in expensive to produce, produced in third world sweat shops, and sold at an exorbitant markup.

 

[RA92]

I hope some corporation doesn't rip off his idea and screw him out of royalties, or screw him in the royalties by tossing him peanuts, while the turn his idea into the new "Beats by Dre." That being "something in expensive to produce, produced in third world sweat shops, and sold at an exorbitant markup.

Don't worry. <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity>Piezoelectricity isn't a new concept and is way too inefficient to actually be of much application to large devices.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Nice, but I think I prefer Breast Power Generation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2008/06/victorias_circuit.html

 

[Something Amyss]

It's always a bit weird to me that the first thing this sort of thing is usually compared to is smartphone charging (Can urine batteries charge an iPhone?), given we have issues of compatibility with more substantial power generators. For developing nations, however, this is an awesome way to charge multiple other devices.

 

[Avaholic03]

Hardly a "new invention". But that kid does seem pretty bright, and hopefully one day will actually invent something useful.

 

[Exterminas]

I don't think people in western countries walk as much as 7000 steps on an average day.

 

[iseko]

I don't think people in western countries walk as much as 7000 steps on an average day.

You have apps that can count that for you. My average is around 11000 per day. In week days at leasts. Sundays... Eh.

The technology that he uses is indeed nothing new. The concept of using the excess energy of walking to generate energy. That is new for as far as I know. Cool idea. I think that it is little things like this that could help out a lot. Good job kid.

 

[CriticalMiss]

He's a few years late to call it a new invention.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14647639

And even that wasn't new at the time.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=928763

Still, good to see people exploring opportunities to generate power without fossil fuels. Unless you eat coal I guess.

 

[chikusho]

Bright kid, but as has already been pointed out, it's nothing new.

This type of technology has already been advanced enough to be able to integrated into the shell of a phone, so that any repetitive movement could charge it.

http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/03/future-stroking-your-cell-phone-could-charge-its-battery/8656/

 

[Someone Depressing]

It's hardly new, but coming from a tennage boy doing something other than angsting over his stepdad or watching porn, this'll get a lot more attention from major companies, who might want to adapt his idea.

Because, let's face it:
Not everyone has breasts

If that sounded sorta out of context, it's about that breast charger thing that could power an ipod.

I still hope they don't end up screwing him over.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Nothing new, I remember some Australian project to have their soldiers equipped with similar things for charging batteries.

Unfortunately, IIRC, the ADF uses lots of different types of batteries, simply standardising them would be better.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

Hey, for the record I would love this. My jogging/gps apps (Gotta have my Zombies, Run!) use a hefty amount of juice, and leave me at about 50% battery by the end of my morning jog. It might not fill up my battery but it sounds like it would be awesome for keeping me from being dead by the end of the day if I forget to put my gear on the charger while I'm in the shower.

 

[Strazdas]

i would love to not run out of power, and thus music, when i go on walks. especially since i do this in the evening so the phone is somewhat discharged most of the time already.

I don't think people in western countries walk as much as 7000 steps on an average day.

i have app that count that. on average i do from 5000 to 10000 steps on weekedays. on weekend if im going out or traveling its usually 20000+, if im at home, my phone is on a table so it cant count any steps i do, program assumes 0 (and calls me couch potato even if i work out while at home hehe)

Because, let's face it:
Not everyone has breasts

what, you mean my man-tits wont do?

Unfortunately, IIRC, the ADF uses lots of different types of batteries, simply standardising them would be better.

ADF? Wikipedia is being unhelpful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADF]

 

[Thaluikhain]

Because, let's face it:
Not everyone has breasts

what, you mean my man-tits wont do?

Don't see why they wouldn't, as long as you take them with you when you are walking, they will be moving around.

This also applies to most body parts, though, no reason to use breasts before it sounding cooler, I guess.

Unfortunately, IIRC, the ADF uses lots of different types of batteries, simply standardising them would be better.

ADF? Wikipedia is being unhelpful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADF]

Australian Defence Force

 

[Strazdas]

Because, let's face it:
Not everyone has breasts

what, you mean my man-tits wont do?

Don't see why they wouldn't, as long as you take them with you when you are walking, they will be moving around.

This also applies to most body parts, though, no reason to use breasts before it sounding cooler, I guess.

Unfortunately, IIRC, the ADF uses lots of different types of batteries, simply standardising them would be better.

ADF? Wikipedia is being unhelpful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADF]

Australian Defence Force

leaving them at home is sadly not an option. though i guess its a sort of self-defeating power source, considering that the more i run to charge them, the less fat i get and the less electricity i generate. thus i have to run even more to power up my phone.

wait, this is perfect.

Ah, Military. I think they would have their own rechargers anyway. also why not adapt the USB recharge ports? they pretty much work on wide variety of batteries, you cant overcharge them (the battery wont allow it) and if you undercahrge it it just charges slower.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Ah, Military. I think they would have their own rechargers anyway. also why not adapt the USB recharge ports? they pretty much work on wide variety of batteries, you cant overcharge them (the battery wont allow it) and if you undercahrge it it just charges slower.

IIRC, this was about the same time CSIRO (Australia's government research organisation) was looking to develop generators to stick on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, to generate electricity from vibrations from the traffic.

Or rather, some bloke in an office somewhere had an idea (I suspect he or she had pointy hair), and people had to play along. As an aside, when people came to look at the CSIRO labs, they had to stick beakers full of water and food colouring and dry ice to make things look more sciencey to clueless visitors.