Imagine this -- one day, with enough steroids, your pet
hamster actually
could power your home by just running
on its wheel. Georgia Tech researchers have discovered ways to "convert even irregular biomechanical energy into electricity," and it's demonstrating the finding by showing off jacket-wearing rodents that are game to run. According to the institution's Zhong Lin Wang, the minuscule nanogenerators "can convert any mechanical disturbance into electrical energy," which theoretically means that power can be driven by simple, irregular mechanical motion such as the vibration of vocal cords, flapping of a flag or the tapping of fingers. As with most of these university discoveries, there's no telling how soon this stuff will be pushed out to the commercial realm, but at least they've found something to keep the rats busy during the off hours.
[Via
news:lite, thanks Charles]
posted Feb 27th 2009 12:33AM
I don't see this being implemented anytime soon.
This is the next logical evolution of animal abuse.
Mice should be lucky there isn't a way to turn them into gasoline.
Yet!
you dont need to turn them into gasoline, they burn fine as they are
You know this biomechanical energy thing sucks. Obviously you have to feed the hamster to make it do work, and there are losses. So it's better to spend the money fuel cell fuel such as ethanol or methanol (which are cheaper per calorie than the food youi'd need to feed the hamster to get a certain amount of work).
It doesn't matter if its efficient if its self replicating. Unfortunately, the biomechanical generator parts aren't self replicating...
The idea is not to make something move to make electricity, it's to embed this technology into things that already move like your clothes, keyboard keys, mouse wheel, whatever... Right now, that energy is being wasted in the form of heat, sound etc. The keyboard key generator idea is not new but it's not popular.
like the leaves on your tree or all the palm trees across california's beaches
Obviously, they are are creating this tech to harness ALREADY EXISTING sources of mechanical energy.. They are not going to create a hampster powerplant anytime soon..
Hamsters in the Matrix. Freaky.
shhh!!! we don't want the machines to take us out of those pods and put us on exercise wheels!!!
Stick one of these on yourself, fuck the hamsters. If you're active at all I have no doubt it'd pay for itself in energy costs.
i was thinking about sex accessories that lets horny people contribute to energy output, but your idea just sounds so....
@mocax Sounds like those shake-to-charge flashlights, only different...
...means that power can be driven by simple, irregular mechanical motion such as the vibration of vocal cords, flapping ............................. " Wait !! WHAT ???" ....................... of a flag... " Oh."
I read that wrong! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_PkJ_4oEjc
Flapping of a flag < wind turbine
Are you really this slow?
The correct relationship is:
Flapping flag < Flapping flag that also generates electricity.
No-one would even consider trying to replace a wind turbine with a bunch of flags, but there are many many embassies all over the place that are up to their ears in flags; why not make them do something useful on their off hours?
I heard this is what keeps Richard Gere going..
How about putting this in wireless mice, gamepads, keyboards, laptops, cellphones, younameit? It doesn't have to generate enough power to drive said units by itself - but could continuosly recharge, thus extend the battery life.
I hope to god you're not serious
Slap a few of these on all your joints, your neck, and your eyelids and you might just be able to power your mp3 player. :V
Hey, now you can build your self a real life working desert survival suit and catch the nearest sandworm.
Reminds me of that episode of Dexter's Lab where he needs more power so he pulls the lever to max. Then the camera pans to the side and shows an array of hamsters running on their wheel-turbine thingies.
anything that moves + wireless power capabilities + this = electrical power everywhere.
Or, we could create the Matrix for hamsters.
will it run in a crisis?
Poor hammy!
I'm a little surprised no one commented on the irony that they went to all the trouble to get the hamster to generate electricity with nanogenerators when the thing is already running on a wheel!!!... hello, Ben Franklin could have gotten electricity from this setup!
I thought of that too, but I didn't say it. As obvious as that is, the point was to investigate another type of mechanics. They should have used mice / rats in a maze to avoid the other associations.
Yeah I think if they were to hook up the wheel to a generator, it would create more power than .5 nanoamps.
That could be a good way to keep the hamster running on it's wheel, hook up that nanogenerator to a nano cow-prodder. The more it runs the more it gets shocked to keep it running. Here comes PETA....
It is the most cute power source ever.
For some reason I read "Jacketed" a "Jet-Packed". And for some reason I think that's a much better idea.
Why don't u just put a generator on the wheel....
Well....it's no smoking monkey...
Why can't they get this tech in my iPhone 3G so it charges when I walk with it in my pocket?
"Can I pick him up?"
"I wouldn't."
I think everything will eventually be retrofitted to produce power. The green expo is today and they have the inlet outlet project that would implement alot of what is listed in this article. Anything that can create energy should be retrofitted as such...... But it would be smarter to retrofit the wheel not the mouse.
"Jacketed"... Georgia Tech... I get it
All this is a great idea, except that I think people find themselves thinking the power is 'free.'
It's not free. It's not even cheap. If you want to harvest x% of the energy from anything and convert it to electricity, you are borrowing from the normal output of whatever the activity was. So, for example, if I want to harvest 50% of the energy used from your speech, that means you're going to have a 50% harder time projecting your voice somewhere. Half of the energy that would normally be converted to sound is going to be muted during the conversion to electricity. And you're not going to get all 50% of the energy back as electricity; you might be lucky to get 20% of it.
Ugh. And physics is very counter-intuitive to me :(
Good - I can think of plenty of people I would like to give such a set up to.
but perhaps those yappy little dogs might be good for something now?
;( i had one of these hamsters... he died last week when my cat got him, but while i still had him we joked about an idea like this.
Just think, if you had those jackets on your mouse and the cat - quite a bit of power could have been generated from the whole ordeal. :P
Call me cruel, but I'm quite interested in seeing how much energy would be created in the panic of a life and death situation.