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Hand-Powered Hardware?
quiddity writes "Following the Goofy USB Devices post, one has to know what can be self-powered when the batteries all die. You can handcrank your Gameboy, recharge your cellphone or pda (even grandpa), wind up a webserver (with minions, a beowulf..), see in the dark, and project a movie. What else can we propel through the next blackout/apocalypse?" Some of these devices have have been on Slashdot before; what cool hand-powered tech hasn't been and should be?
I remember reading about a device developed specifically to assist third-world countries with their crop planting and communications via a radio that is hand-cranked and provides a large amount of listening time per crank.
:).
Apparently these countries suffer from a lack of information about weather patterns, which would greatly assist with the crop planting, and which is provided by the hand-cranked radio
An example of geeky inventing that actually has practial application, rare on slashdot
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Even if we have some cool hand-powered hardware, how are we going to use it properly?
Maybe a power-generating keyboard and mouse, so the faster you type and move your mouse, the longer your hand-powered PC will stay on.
This is nice and all but I would much rather see a device (like your cellphone, pda, or gameboy) take advantage of the piezoelectric effect so the batteries charge when you use the device.
For a physics assignment last year a friend and I created a hand-cranked generator using an old windshield wiper motor. It worked pretty well: we were able to power a boom box, a Game Boy Advance, a small water pump, a large light, and a few other items.
We were thinking of selling it on the street during the blackout last summer, but decided that its nostalgic value would end up outweighing any monetary compensation we would gain.
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Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
A well-trained human body can produce around 100 W of motion effect for a couple of hours. (bicycle style)
Wrong: the average Jow Blow who doesn't smoke and exercise somewhat regularly puts out between 75W and 120W for 2 hours. Well trained folks can put out 200/300W, and extremely well trained people (thing Lance Armstrong rushing to the finish line) up to 1kW peak for a short time.
The Gossamer Albatros for example, was powered by a 40Kg athlete woman who put out an average of 300/350W for more than 3 hours continuously, which explains why she was pretty knackered when she arrived.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
when playing Gameboys and other such devices, isn't it possible just to harness all the extra energy expended beyond that which is required to tell the device, "Yes, move up, and then left, and then..."? Don't mod this up to funny: I'm serious. Think of all the energy that is wasted by just heating the plastic, when it could go into powering the device in the first place.
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so the post is about human powered tech, not alternate power tech. they're already being looked at for militay boots ,but i'd like to see the piezio electric shoes/boots for use with an integrated system of things like woven heaters in pants/coat/shoe liners, entertainment/communications. a powered antennae woven into the back of a jacket would be a leap on signal strength and have the added bonus of being shielded, most use handsfree anyway so just plug into the clothes. granted, it is a specialized and initially costly set of applications but over time (assuming there's a technology rich future available to us given current events and lessons of history, but i digress) we could see such things as being more easily available.
I'd add a capacitor (bank) to that list, its to hard to produce a constant cycle on a bike. When you go too fast you would generate to much power though, when you go to slow you wouldn't generate enough which gives you a very wavy ouput, not real good for DC appliences. With a capacitor you can store the power you generate when you are going fast to use up when you are going slow.
I would also think about using voltage regulators with decent heatsinks rather than resistors, regulators tend to be more forgiving than resistors.
I would think it'd be better to have something with a little more "ooomph", which would probably be a battery -- unless you wanna ride that bike the entire time the radio is on.
But, the parent actually said a hand crank battery replacement... oops. I would think that a battery would be a better choice in this situation in order to "make the charge last". A typical cap isn't going to do much to keep something running if you step off the bike, right?
Karnal
I would just hook it up to a few LEDs and a capacitor to light up the keyboard as you type. That would actually be useful, doesn't hurt the battery at all, and would look cool.
Dutch designer Dick van Hoff recently designed beautiful hand-powered kitchen utensils. To quote:
Dick van Hoff's Tyranny of the Plug series of kitchen machines chop, churn and blend, but don't require electricity. They are powered by human energy-- by pulling on them, turning them or moving them to and fro... and they function beautifully.
Pictures on Designboom and Slowlab.Van Hoff is calling into question the fact that members of contemporary society readily accept new objects that are powered by electricity, yet rarely contemplate where the power is coming from. Instead, his products make people invest their human energy into powering them.
Sleekly yet simply designed of cast iron, chrome, glass, and wood, these machines run smoothly and with efficiency, while fostering awareness and contemplation.