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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?
So that's what they're calling it these days...........
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Say a Mini-ITX low power, embedded OS on flash with a broswer & email. Modem and Ether net. TV output for my battery powered TV.
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
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.
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
There isn't much you can't power with this type of setup.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
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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You just need a coconut shell!
As a matter of fact, there are lots of things you can do with:
and of course, Some Basic Ingenuity...