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Power Scheme for OLPC Project Falling Into Place
robotrachel writes "According to Technology Review, the $100 laptop intended for children in the developing world will be powered in much the same way that you might start an outboard motor on a boat. The new power system will 'make the laptop much easier to power than it would be with a hand crank, in part, because the users will be able to operate the generator in a variety of ways, including holding the device (the size of two hockey pucks) in one hand and pulling the string with the other, or clamping the generator to a desk, attaching the string to one foot, and using leg power.'" There are plenty of sewing machine treadles in the world, too -- I hope someone can figure out a way to combine them with the new design.
The next generation of geek will have massive calfs and thighs instead of a single massive forearm
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
These machines are actually starting to sound like something some people in the US might even like. I can imagine sitting outside in some remote area, working as much as I like without even worrying about running out of batteries (and getting exercise at the same time).
What'd I'd really like to see is an inexpensive laptop which has a screen that's highly visible, even outdoors. I could get a lot of work done that way, and work on my tan at the same time. Does anyone know of any? I'd assume it'd work best with grayscale.
I am not sure if something like this is powerful enough or even cost-effective, but what about solar cell technology to power these laptops?
Was this even considered?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
That sounds awesome. Literally, since they say it's much quieter than your usual hand-cranked generators. And 'generating 20 watts is comfortable, and it's possible to generate 10 watts for "as long as you want," the developers say."
Free energy and a little exercise in the process. I like it. Watch it cost $250 for just the generator in the US.
This seems even a worse idea than The Professor's zero-impact bamboo exercycle. Perhaps these guys should consult orthopedic surgeons or even Sherwood Schwartz for some design changes.
It was a long time ago, probably in the 80s; but I know I've seen a cartoon of a woman in the stereotypical secretary role, with the computer powered by a foot tredal.
OLPC = One Leg PC?
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Make the string the power coord and you could have a yo-yo.
Fun and power.
The best mechanical coupling design would have a open interface. A rotating bolt that can take the pullcord attachment, or a sewing machine pedal cam, or a bicycle tire clip, or a homemade windmill/waterwheel/goatwheel, or any mechanical rotation.
Then include in its desktop a link to a blog for new powerup inventions worldwide. Necessity is the mother of invention, and local materials the father. Give these kids a way to improve and share, and we'll all get the benefits of their unique insights. What better way to harness the power of global kids?
--
make install -not war
To anyone who objects, please note that this is a carbon-neutral technology and therefore won't contribute to global warming except for the hot air from 'activists.' The Free Market -- gotta love it!
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Why not just attach the string to an electric motor? That way the legs/feet would be free to operate the rudder pedals.
"According to Technology Review, the $100 laptop intended for children in the developing world will be powered in much the same way that you might start an outboard motor on a boat."
I used to start my old outboard by priming the fuel bulb, choking a bit and starting it with the electric starter. Seems like a lot of steps just to turn on a computer. Then again, it was a lot of steps just to start a boat so I got one with eletric fuel pump, choke, and starter. Now I just turn the key.
What better way to harness the power of global kids?
You could use them to hunt for pirates! Arrrr me matey!
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Aha! At least the get-rich scheme is revealed... hook them on pull-string laptops and then sell them replacement strings when the string breaks... ingenious! My hat's off to you Nicholas Negroponte!!!
I'd think it'd be cool if they could come up with a hamster wheel attachment to the power supply. When I was a kid, it seemed like my two pet hamsters had to be generating at least a kilowatt between them while running on darn thing.
I can totally see this -- a cluster of laptops.. err.. kids.. cranking or pulling away, but no, they aren't powering their laptop... The electricity is instead routed to a high-speed fan that's blowing over the local overlord.
http://www.pledgebank.com/100laptop
Well, maybe you can own one, but your only chance of getting one in the US is probably to sign the pledge to convince everyone it's a viable solution.
BUT, it had only one program that when you pulled the string you got responses like "The cow goes MOOO!" Long live the talking wheel!
I was assuming that you had to wrap a rope around the fly-wheel and pull, repeat, until the damn thing started(my outboard was a really, really old two and a half horse British thing. Damned if I can remember the name), and an electric starter kinda defeats the purpose, no? Now with the foot peddle idea mentioned there, I'm sort of worried that a bunch of slave kids will be used to power a beowulf cluster of these things, like they are doing with the looms now.
What?
does the concept of a pull-string operated laptop seem a little insulting?
Also, what real use can you glean from a PC these days, without a network connection? 90% of the use I get out of my PC is from the broadband connection giving me access to wikipedia, google, various developer networks, digg & slashdot.
So does anyone out there have a non-connected PC hooked up performing some life-changing work, or are they just useless when disconnected from the wwworld?
Will program for karma.
did they even talk to any potential end users of this device? I'm serious, as much as this is a laudable effort, it just seems like one of those pie in the sky "good intentions" things that will never materialize. People have tried this in the past and met with failure. Not necessarily out of any design flaws, but the fact is that poor people simply didn't want it. Let them decide what they want, it's easy just to say, "Here! Technology will cure everything!! I even designed a computer for you! Take it from us, Technology!" but how much good does it actually do? All the technology in the world isn't going to help people that cannot or will not use it.
A change of string will cause the machine's hardware signature to change, requiring an OLPC string activation. This effectively ends cheap generic spool twine refills as only proprietary string can be used.
Why is it that fat Euro/Americans think that poor kids will be saved by laptops powered by a foot peddle or otherwise. At $100 per laptop progress could be made providing food, water, medicine, education or maybe reliable power. Nope they need laptops. For What?
Of course, they could put in a modern Pentium and heat the house at the same time that they train for the Olympic team.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
These types of generators are great as you can use very simple wind-powered cyclic motion devices to power the generator. You could even use a tree branch that was moving in the wind. Saves having to pull the string yourself.
- I stole your sig.
Aside from the reality that have of the time is night, enough solar cells to power this properly might well remove the concept of rugged, portable, laptop from the existing idea.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In World War II in the War in the Pacific, American planes were outfitted with a special emergency device. This was a hand crank generator coupled to a Morse Code transmiter on a spindle much like a music box. As you turned the crank it would power the trasnmiter and the spindle would key the correct di di di dah dah dah di di dit (SOS) and some other information so a search plane or ships with direction finding equipment could find you.
The slang name for this box was a "Gibson Girl".
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
After the power grid fails, these will be rolled out to allow people to work. Since there will be no internet connectivity, static Myspace.com pages will be included to keep teenagers from rioting.
Well, if you really want to be charitable, you could also go to http://www.heifer.org/ , and for $300 sponsor a llama, a trio of rabbits, hive of honey bees, and a flock of geese.
But then you wouldn't get the cool OLPC, that they aren't supposed to sell in the US commercially...
According to Technology Review, the $100 laptop intended for children in the developing world will be powered in much the same way that you might start an outboard motor on a boat."
How long will a boat battery power a laptop? How do you recharge it without the boat motor going.?
This idea sound more suited to more afluentcountrie, where people oly use thier boats for recreation and thats for the summer, so they aren't being used 9 months of the year.
I thought it was more like One Legged Alternative Power
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Sheesh!
We have been discussing this kind of thing for a very long time where I work. According to the news, Americans are some of the most heavy in the world, and to narrow it down further, most of those heavy people are computer professionals. (http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/obesity_US. shtml) and (http://www.perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php ?id=40450&forum_id=64&page=3)
We designed and built a very simple solution to this problem...
We took a stationary bicycle and attached a generator to the rear wheel...it is a small enough generator to provide for a laptop...12 v, 15 a...
Now, to get 8 hours of work done, we use a small battery (about an hour's worth of power) and you have to pedal for approx. 4 hours to get your 8 hours of power.
Next we will try an elliptical exercise machine, and maybe a treadmill...
Theoretically, this little generator could be hooked up to any kind of weight machine...
... for any computer, laptop, desktop, whatever,... is a hand-crank not to generate power but to marginally increase the voltage given to the CPU (or whatever exact component) to give the same effect as overclocking it. This would be SO satisfying (at those times I'm waiting and waiting and wishing LotusNotes would Hurry. The. F*ck. Up. and Launch! Awready!) to be able to put some muscle into a crank and actually make the machine run faster.
Seriously - the weak link here is how data gets in and out of these machines. Printers, servers and satellite uplinks seem unlikely in this scenario. Heck, it is touch and go getting broadband in rural areas of the first world. 500MB may be enough for personal data - but if the laptop fails, bye-bye data. Backup will need infrastructure. Printers will last until the consumables run out. "Viral" peer-to-peer redundant storage sounds fun, but will 500MB per node - in a (probably) closed, isolated community be enough to make that work?
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a state-of-the-art carbon fibre fishing rod and you'll feed him until the line breaks.
FYI - school children in NO country will be able to 'buy' these. Sponsors provide them, if children sell them (I guess at the nearest Kinko's express in Djibouti's badlands?); they go without until another round of upgrades or distribution. They are not expect to distribute any of these in the USA, but rather in more primitive developing nations without accessible libraries and schools connected to the grid.
wouldn't that have been a more appropriate/identifiable analogy than an Outboard Motor? Most people don't live on the water, you insensitive clod.
Why stick up for big business?
"imagine Beowulf of those"? Is slashdot going down the tubes?
I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of computer users (including myself) who could really use the exercise. Hell, just hook up a treadle to an alternator, and run that to trickle charge a UPS, so if you stop pedaling, your computer switches to hibernate mode.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I agree its not the computers but whats on the computers that matter.
..fraction munchers.. number munchers.. puzzletanks.. math blaster.. logo.. that was the stuff. No internet there.
My Apple ][ GS can still give some of those poor kids a hellva education with all the software i have for it. Thats what I learnt on
I seem to remember years ago that a PC company (compaq, perhaps?) made a laptop with a keyboard that actually harnessed the energy of typing to charge the battery.
Of course, that was only useful back in the days when people typed. Now that we do everything with a mouse, keyboard capable of charging a battery is less useful. But if you're in a developing country, with no internet, you might find it useful to type something rather than just surfing for porn...
The idea of cranking some power into a laptop has had me following the OLPC project from the start. When out in the forest/mountain where you need power for a device like a laptop & sat-phone the product line gets extreamly narrow.
You need 2 methods to effectivly power your stuff.
Solar being the most obvious sence it powers life on this planet ~~
For solar you need a good inverter & good panels. Flexible panels make it much easier as you can get more panel per square inch to send to the inverter.
Here is a decent setup
The second would be for at night or in low light. Your gas or for lightweight & low sound.. crank, peddal or plain old electronic car lighter hook up. Whatever gets juice into uour batterys!
I heard a few fit hampsters could work nicely as a non-stop power supply.
-Now if your into rugged outdoor equipment & have some time to drool.. check these links.
Itronix
gobook3 Itronix laptop
Kill your TV
Yes, I have a small child. No, she hasn't watched it into oblivion yet (she's working on destroying "The Incredibles" at the moment).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...consider an electric starter.
(sorry, just couldn't resist).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If it is as small and low speed as it seems to be, a treadle isn't the only way to use it!
As a low speed generator, it could be used in a smaller windmill, too. And as the generating element in a micro hydroelectric system.
Has anyone found any details on this little unit? Squid labs doesn't yet appear to have any information on it.
And, since the OLPC unit is running linux, that means cross development onto something like the Atmel AVR, MicroChip PIC, or Zilog Z8 might be just a short step away. Since I know that the AVR has app notes for using their parts as low speed USB devices, this may mean that building out infrastructure in a developing nation may just have gotten much, much easier.
At least, that is my hope ...
This is progress?
But I still have to question how useful this will be in the overall scheme of improving conditions in the countries where it's targeted. While the laptops aren't intended for places where there's no running water or a lack of food, I'm not convinced that you can jump-start a country's development by skipping important steps like industrialization and infrastructure.
Understand, I'm not arguing that there's no point in doing this, I'm merely suggesting that 50,000 hand powered laptops might not be the most efficacious method for moving third world countries along on the path to development. Especially as these seem destined to wind up in the hands of children, for whom there will be little computer-related work once they reach adulthood. Unless we're training them to be $100 laptop technicians.
The project won't be a total loss of course (even if it fails it's stated goal) but I have to believe that there are better things that we could be doing with the time, effort, and money that's going into this project.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
not that it really matters but negroponte did not found the media lab. it was founded by former president jerome wiesner, as the actual name of the building clearly indicates. negroponte took over after dr wiesners's death in the 90s.
Free energy and a little exercise in the process.
I wouldn't say that a human powered generator is exactly free. Humans need substances called food and water. These substances are often scarce in the areas which this laptop will be used.
IMHO, this laptop project is a great idea. Food will keep you alive but education gives power. Both are needed in developing nations. Perhaps this project will help a student design an irrigation system which will increase the potential of a crop.
If these are destined for developing countries, how are you going to enforce the rules governing who gets the computers? It seems to me that it won't take long for the militaries/ militias/ guerrilas/ warlards etc. to realize that a laptop can be a real asset to the operations. Consider the following:
Early development was sponserd by the millitary
1. Modern computers are largely due to code-breakers, artillary table generators, etc. developed during WWII.
2. ARPA/DARPA developed the Internet.
3. Would we have an NSA without computers?
Ways computers could be used for military purposes in developed countries
1. Google Maps-gives terrain for planning manuvers
2. Email for organizing
3. Weapons/warfare research
4. Training (the US military uses video games for training)
5. Finances - (e.g. Nigerian scammers)
6. Logistics tracking
7. Intelligence gathering (CNN was a big asset to Saddam in the first gulf war)
And finally...
How many times have we seen foreign aid misused?
- N. Korea using food aid to feed its army
- Iraq's oil for food program
+ many other instances that don't make national news where the local fighters come in after an aid convoy and take everything that was just handed out.
Don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of the $100 laptops-it really is a case of "teach a man to fish". I fully expect at least some of them to help the kids and eventually to get in the hands of adults who make good use of them. Just be prepared for the backlash when yet another powerful tool is used in a the wrong way and remember that the good done with it outweighs weigh(s) the damage it can cause when used for evil.
science is a religion
Apparently the mods didn't understand this comment was to say "look at what we're saving them from." Correct me if I'm wrong (with something other than mod points), but simply drawing a connection between "sewing-machine-like power" and "sweat shop" isn't exactly trolling...
He was task with removing the burden of men watering fields in a third world country.
He came up with the idea of having water bufallo's go up a moving conver belt making the belt move turning a electric generator. And when they reached the top do the same on the way down... Simple... Purs the effort on them.
Well the Water Bufallo's did not like it at all.... So the men started to shove them up the ramp! And at the top. It took even more men to shove them down the other side... Yep they were producing power for the electric pumps but it took more men and effort to do this than by irigating the fields the old way.
Gyro quickly left the country...
The Embasador said he was sorry it did not work and not giving something that would help. But the Village elder say. You are wrong. Its a find gift! It give something for the Bufallo's to scratch their sides against...
I experimented with taking a spare keyboard, mouse and monitor and hooking them onto an exercise bicycle so that I could work out while using my computer. The motion required to turn the pedals made it very difficult to use a mouse and read the screen. I wonder if a treadle might have similar issues.
I ended up using hotkeys to replace most of my mouse movements. I eventually went back to using the equipment for it's proper purpose: drying clothes.
Sure, suggest open source as the solution, why doncha? And get a +5 interesting for it. Suggesting open source on Slashdot is the perfect way to embezzle karma. You're the reason the economy's ruined here.
You're almost as bad as twitter.