Slashdot Mirror
"Crowd Farm" to Collect Energy?
Cain writes to mention that a couple of MIT students would like to harness the mechanical power of large groups of people. "A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current."
Why make it so hard? Just hook the dynamo up to the turnstiles instead.
I love this! If they install something like this on the streets around me I am going to send the electric company a bill for my time to generate their power ... what am I a giant hamster to them?!
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Now the only technical problem is getting americans out of their cars...
Would they have implemented a way to collect the energy of me tripping and stumbling as well? It seems that I would make a lot more energy tripping over the small rises created than the depression itself.
;)~
Too bad I travel from North Station in Boston
Running straight home to apply this idea to the shock absorbers on my shaggin' wagon hippie van -- no more dead batteries for me!
Use the mosh pit to power the amps! the phrase "Behold the power of ROCK" has more meaning now
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps
I have a better idea. Why not make a system that generates energy under the force of collapsing Big Dig tunnel sections?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This will probably make it slightly harder (and more tiring) to walk on those surfaces. The energy has to come from somewhere.
ceci n'est pas une
3 to 4 year olds.
We could power a small coutry if we installed these in pre-schools.
Space Cadet
Wow... hook one of those up to my keyboad.... Well, just my delete key would generate a few megawatts of power.
-Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
Quit trying to steal my energy. I'm fat on purpose, you insensitive clod!
...then won't it be more like walking in sand which, for me at least, is a great deal more tiring than firm terrain?
The concept is good, but it would be better suited if it were tied to major highways or railways. If 28k human foot steps can only run a train for a second, then imagine the power produced by 10's of thousands of 3,000lb cars driving on them every day.
Why not just install wool carpets, make everyone take their shoes off and walk around in fuzzy socks. Then, they can touch special metal plates to donate their built-up static charge to the grid.
And for fun, they can make ramps without carpeting, for sliding down. Go back up, build up a charge, discharge and slide down again. I'd be on that all day!
The energy has to come from somewhere.
Wouldn't we get a lot more energy out of crowds if we made them walk on hamster wheels instead? Or does my employer have a patent on that already?
A couple of 30-somethings embark on the ultimate roadtrip
Ages ago in a sceince lesson we were asked to analyse the idea of pulling rollers on the M25 motorway to capture the energy of vehicles that ran over them, well I sort of spotted the flaw in the plan being that the car would all get sucky MPG and polute more.
Now one decade later we have the same idea but with people, howmuch polution will that produce (though extra repiration)? also would not the capture of all the excess heat produced by said people to heat say water (save money on heating by getting the water from 10C to day 20->30C and reduce the strain on the A/C by lowering the Air temp+humidity) be better?
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Soylent Green!!
Im in ur sidewalkz stealing ur nrgz
How about bungee like elevators for going down, instead of using up energy both ways?
FTA:
The electric current generated by the Crowd Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up a sign about energy. "We want people to understand the direct relationship between their movement and the energy produced," says Juscyzk.
So let's collect energy so we can waste it?
I wonder what it feels like walking on this floor - there's got to be some difference since the energy I normally expend is only enough to hold me up. If there's no perpetual motion machine here then doesn't the energy ultimately come from my breakfast?
more of the same on Twitter.
Sorry the american attitude of someone elses fault is going to kill this as soon as someone slips and falls on the floor. They will see someone making money off of it and sue.
I will be suprised if it ever actually gets the insurance coverage to be realy deployed.
Wonder what'll happen when the urination threshhold exceeds the flooring capacity.
Maintaining thousands of discreet components would be a nightmare.
Consider instead a piezoelectric source with almost no moving parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity
...omphaloskepsis often...
The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.
Ever walked in sand? It's many, many times slower and harder. So what are they going to do with travellers that are already exhausted from travel? Piss them off with a hard-to-walk-on floor. There's also NEVER 30,000 people in South Station; where did they get that number from? Let's put this in perspective: Fenway stadium, average summer weekend game, is ~30,000 people. Even at peak commuter rush hour, I think you'd be hard pressed to find even one TENTH that number of people at any one time.
The electric current generated by the Crowd Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up a sign about energy.
Wow. Oh. Wow.
The MBTA (which is BILLIONS of dollars in debt) and Amtrak (same...) have much bigger priorities than some stupid concept like this. How about PA systems which actually work (and don't broadcast "please report suspicious packages, safety is our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY!" every 2 minutes), bus fareboxes which work in cold weather, online lookup+refilling of Charliecard balances, integration of Charliecards into the parking garages, or online bus status? (the busses have been equipped for years with such a capability.)
Or even the "signaling" systems in the orange line which are constantly broken, or replacing more cars on the green line (the newer cars use much more efficient motors which are also capable of regenerative braking), same for the red line. The entire orange and blue lines are also non-regenerative braking as well.
Please help metamoderate.
You mean like this?
6 756694
http://www.google.com/patents?id=t6QRAAAAEBAJ&dq=
The problem is that this device causes all sorts of problems for vehicles like,
1. increased rolling resistance (car drivers pay for the power generated)
2. motorcycles anyone?
3. increased tire wear
Humans are a better idea because all it does is cause slightly more exercise. For roads, I do not think this is such a good idea. Parking lots maybe, or drive thrus but not normal roads.
That will make it slightly, but measurably, harder for me to walk across that surface!
So are we witnessing the return of step-activated booby traps in modern civilization?
I for one welcome our new huge-spherical-stone-balls-heading-right-for-us masters.
More Twoson than Cupertino
If people have to step on a somewhat soft floor to produce this energy, they will expend a certain amount more energy walking than normal. Now, sure, if this is done in your average American city, that isn't a bad thing, the average American could afford to do a bit more exercise.
It's also not likely to be a very energy-efficient energy collection system, for every ten joules of energy expended walking on the squishy platform I'd be surprise to hear of one joule of energy collected.
I believe that I saw an article on Slashdot several months ago where this kind of idea was implemented in Britain, but it was on the roads. Cars getting onto the highways would drive over large plates; the plates would move and generate enough electricity to run street lights. Not a bad idea, but I wonder if the energy return in this case would be enough to justify the cost of installation.
Love sees no species.
The real engineering trick with this design is explaining to the people that they're not just rats on a treadmill. That's not an easy problem for MIT kids to solve on their slide rules...
Especially if they're going to put systems like this in "crowd" areas - crowds aren't only composed of healthy adults, they also contain children, disabled people, etc. How hard would it be to push a wheelchair across this thing?
I'd think attaching these to the hands of all the MIT students would generate enough up and down motion to power the state.
I've often wondered why no one has designed exercise equipment that works this way. Especially exercise bicycles, which don't even need to provide calibrated resistance.
Sideways slippage? WTF??? The first person to take a pratfall is going to be a bazillionaire. Seems to me that they would do better to make something that, oh, say, GEEZERS could walk on without falling down and breaking a hip. Like, I dunno, maybe have the damned things depress a quarter inch wnem stepped on? Something anyone who's ever walked on carpet can be comfortable with?
Who came up with this idea, Rube Goldberg? Get back to the drawing board, fellows, only this time stay away from the astronauts before you design the damned things.
-mcgrew (get off my lawn!)
They need to run this thing in dance clubs. People dancing all night long; surely all that energy can be put to use. And why not gyms? Tap into "spinning" bicycles and treadmills directly.
If I read this correctly they claim that for each human step you can power a 120W bulb for a second. Something tells me they are using funny numbers here. Have you ever gone to one of those museums, or somewhere else that has a hand generator hooked up to a small tv or light bulb? It takes a decent amount of cranking, and this is a case where your puprose is turning the crank so most of your energy is directed towards that goal. With walking most of your energy directed into another goal, walking. There is no way that the energy transfered, collected and usable even comes close to 120W/s per step. Escpecially if you are going to have a surface that you can actually walk on normally.
Use regenerative braking on all the lines? I hear that some of the trains do not yet have that.
Put Solar panels on all the roofs in Boston.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Why should we spend time both commuting to work, and exercising at the gym?
They should outfit the vehicles with exercise bikes with dynamos. Pay people to pedal everyone to work, instead of the pedalers paying for the ride. Watch the energy costs go down, and watch the obesity problems go down, too. Then watch more people bike to work on a freerunning bicycle, except in bad weather.
Then make people pay penalties for being over the average weight, and the entire system finds its optimum lean efficiency.
--
make install -not war
They should trial this in the fattest city in the US (apparently, Houston). Install these devices on every refrigerator door, toilet flusher, and McDonald's trash can flap in the city, and watch the pounds melt off.
My ancestors had this all figured out:
t m
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives/Roman_Slave_Ship.h
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Instead of making a surface where people depress some kind of dynamo, why not just capture vibrations generated from walking on the floor? That way, you're only using *wasted* energy which is normally dissipated in the form of sound, vibrations, and heat, rather than make people work to walk on a squishy floor.
... how cost effective can any such a solution be?
If it's not very efficient, the solution had better look something like a cheap and durable mat that converts footsteps directly into electric energy. If it's more complex, for example requiring a fancy hydraulic system, then it had better be a lot more efficient or else the cost will likely turn out to be prohibitive.
And when the snow comes in winter, when the floor is wet and/or icy, people will be falling all over the place increasing their energy donation to the system. <sarcasm>grin</sarcasm>
But seriously, just how much would it COST to build, install, and maintain a floor-wide energy absorbing system? May I suggest they put these panels under the stairs, instead? Especially on the stairs going DOWN. Take advantage of the energy of the crowds where the investment is smallest and the payback is the greatest. This could even be developed as an after-market item and installed ANYWHERE, without having to modify existing infrastructure. i.e. place meta-steps on top of the existing steps and then wire the meta-steps together.
If each step depresses a panel 1 cm, the energy transfered per step is roughly 70kg *9.8 m/s^2 * .01m = 6.86 J, so one step per second provides about 7 watts of power per person. So if you have about 840 people continuously walking for ten minutes, you have saved 1 kW hr, or about nine cents. And that is not accounting for inefficiencies.
You also have to consider that this is power being turned into waste heat (burned calories) inside the facility. If they are having to air condition the place already, you have to subtract out the work necessary to pump out this additional heat.
The effect on the traveler would be that they have to step up to a surface 1 cm higher with each step. Of course,one CM is probably a bit of an exaggeration, so the effect would probably be even less significant than this.
and feed the crowds Soylent Green?
The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
The obvious problem with the Matrix:
Humans are not energy creating machines.
The heat or movement energy generated by humans or other animals is less than the food energy required for operation.
I was just thinking along those same lines, then I came to the conclusion that this will fail in at least one of a few ways:
It's a simple matter of complex programming.
Moo!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
FTA, 2 X 120W bulbs for 1 sec = 120J
Assuming you convert potential to electrical energy E=mgh, 70kg.10m/s^2.h = 120J
so h is about 20cm, so this would be like climbing 8" stairs. This doesn't take into
account any inefficiencies in conversion or how to get energy if more than one person steps down at a time.
i read that as the 'n' word.
:)
dysexlic?
the japanese already have such a system http://www.japanfs.org/db/1667-e
One notion pops into my head. Isn't the ground hard enough for mobility devices with out moving floors. What happens if the ground moving creates steps that wheel chairs can not easily traverse. Not only that, but what if I get a segway one day. I think this could make for a bumpy ride.
Reason why this flooring system won't be feasible:
1. Cost: flooring alone costs up to 200 $/sf for tiling installed in public areas, not to mention cost of this type of floor proposed.
2. Feasibility: There is going to be a lot of mechanical devices, lots of wiring, a computer system, moving parts, shifting parts, all of which will need to be maintained.
3. Serviceability: The flooring will have to have some sort of diagnosis features as well maintenance access much like escalators probably. What happens when someone spills fluids, tracks in dirt, sand, drops paper clips into the joints, etc.? How about the physical surface cleaning requirements, will the floor be able to be cleaned waxed with conventional equipment?
4. Aesthetics: Probably a major factor, is the deflections of the flooring, even if somehow minimized, people can still feel minute deflections. This is true in the design of buildings where the limiting design factor for a floor is not the dead and live loading conditions but the deflection criteria. You don't want people vibrating when someone walks past, the same will most likely be true on this flooring.
~ In Trust, We Trust ~
You're totally missing the point. Remember all that energy the evil robots got out of all the captive human beings in the Matrix? They got way, way more out than they spent caring for/feeding all those bodies and entertaining them with a virtual world, even. So there.
What happens when there is a glitch in the system? Exactly where does the electrical shock go?
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
Time to pull out that patent I got for a system to get people to make electricity for me by doing things they were already doing. Cha-Ching!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Nossir! I don't like it one little bit! This whole thing stinks to high heaven of the slippery slope to people farming. From here it's just one baby step to yoking us to massive turbines and forcing us to slog around in mind-destroying circles all day long generating power for our Republican Overlords. And before you smarty-pants Windows admins start in with your, "and that's different how?" comments, just think through to the next baby step where the yoke sensors detect your drag on the system and the hive mind slides one of those floor tiles right out from under you and you plunge down a shiny stainless steel chute a la James Bond (or Austin Powers) and land your ass smack in the interlocking helical razor blades of the soylant green production line, stage zero. Then you wind up in the IV drips of a couple dozen of your former colleagues the next day. And all of it owned and operated by Area 51 Aliens flying around in Halliburton's black helicopters and giving each other the Bavarian Illuminati secret handshake with their tentacles. Nossir! Nope! I don't like it atall!
How far does one of the pads depress when you step on it? The article doesn't say.
In many airports they install moving sidewalks to make it easier for people to move around.
Many other buildings have escalators or elevators to assist people.
It may make sense to try to extract energy from escalators and elevators when they are moving down.
According to this story in a Boston rail terminal they are considering making it more difficult for people.
I think gymnasiums would be able to run all their lighting and a few other devices if they installed exercise machines that had built in dynamos.
872835240
Not as a motorway scheme, but at junctions, to power traffic lights and signals. Since the car is braking anyway, absorbing some of its kinetic energy to power lighting isn't such a bad thing.
We've got a frigging huge thermonuclear reactor not so far away. Just capture a part of the energy it radiates and be happy. No, we need to recycle the energy that's already here (humans walking, humans farting - attach the methane hose, whatever next weird idea we have) for the sake of I don't know what. You can't conserve that thing in the sky, it burns away. Use it or loose it. There are so many ways, and not all of them involve fossil fuels (for those who have an illusion that we can keep the planet cool).
You're missing the point. In the new post-modernist mediafied worldview the perception is the reality, and it's far easier for the MBTA to create the perception of a forward-looking, dynamic, responsive agency through this kind of eco-frippery than by trying to solve any of the knotty real-world engineering problems you mention.
how about something that involves a piezo electric crystal?
to generate energy from the impact rather than from the motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity
C'mon, it's so obvious to everyone, I just typed it out...
I guess MIT doesn't teach Universal Design at their architecture school. One of the principals is: "Low physical effort." This would not be a real joy in a wheelchair, or using a walker.
To be able to honestly say they walked up-hill both ways.
So, you're walking on a dissipative surface. That's roughly like, oh, walking through deep mud or water. Well, given how many people are obese, the energy consumption part of it may be a good thing.
The bad thing is that man didn't evolve for this. We evolved for walking on springy surfaces and the occasional hard surface. This may cause a lot of biomechanical problems in the long run.
Of course, it's also inefficient: it probably costs a lot more more to manufacture and maintain the machinery than it will ever generate in power.
> Exactly where does the electrical shock go?
It is sent via interplanetary probe to uranus.
the trick is, how much will it cost to rip up all the walk ways in all the subways in say NY, and replace it with this? my guess is the pay back on energy is pathetic as well, making this idea a DUD
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Floor tiles that vary their height? Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen due to tripping.
I say the generators be installed on things that rotate. All doors and turnstiles. Especially those spinning doors on buildings.
An escalator that goes down would be a good place for a generator as well. It would use the weight of the person(s) standing on it to generate electricity. Of course there would have to be some gearing involved and a small computer, but in a crowded place there'd be plenty of weight (with the right gearing) to offset the controlling equipment's electrical needs (I suppose). The gearing would be how the speed of the device is controlled. Really high gearing for really high load. etc.
Same thing with elevators. On the way down use a really high gearing that would restrict the speed at which the elevator could fall but use that high gearing to spin a generator.
Food calories are actually kilocalories, where 1 kilocalorie = 4184 J. So we have 298,000,000 people * 66 overweight people per 100 people * 20 pounds per person * 3500 kcal per pound * 4184 J per kcal * 1 US gallon per 131,000,000 J = 298000000*66/100*20*3500*4184/131000000 = 4.40e8 gallons.
But are all these overweight people actually overfat, or do some of them have more lean body mass? If you start 20 pounds overweight, cut 10 pounds of fat and then add 5 pounds of fat and 5 pounds of muscle, then repeat the process four times, you're still overweight, but less overfat by 20 pounds.
This isn't going to generate any meaningful amount of energy, it is only to raise awareness or whatever. I think it's pointless.
It would be like going up tiny tiny stairs.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Cut to your favorite stereotypical news program, with an attractive yet rather plastic woman is reading the news...
"To the delight of the early morning travelers the transport authority started its complimentary energy drink program this morning. Passengers unanimously received the new program positively. Unfortunately that didn't stop them from complaining that the morning 6:45am train was 20 minutes late"
"In other news, what is being described as a "moderate" power surge hit the terminal building this morning during the daily commuter rush."
You're making it harder for people to walk. I want money to walk through your train station.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If the floor panels go down, then you have to step up a bit more to get to the next panel over. You are essentially forcing the customer to walk up a bunch of tiny steps. Not a big deal right? Until somebody says hey if we double the depression, we can pay for the electricity for our offices too. Eventually this has a noticable effect on the effort required to do your day to day activities.
As well, your energy has to come from somewhere. So you eat a little bit more, your food comes from farms, so more land needed to generate this food. We use way more energy than our bodies can produce in a day, and it isn't fair to make your customers pay your power bill, by exerting greater strain on their body. I'm not working for my retail purchase, that is why I'm giving them money.
Did anyone read the article? Seriously. I know this is /., but I see 227 comments so far and two that I came across didn't miss the point entirely.
These inventors are not trying to produce power on a commercial or even residential scale. They are creating an innovative urban design tool. Once you beyond all the silly slashdot pseudo physicists panning an idea they do not understand or even bother to read about, this is actually a great concept.
First, it has a wonderful potential to enlighten and enthrall children. I know when I was 8, I would have loved running across a floor and seeing something happen. Where's the wonder? The curiosity? Wouldn't you think it was neat (even today) to sit on a subway car and see an LCD light power-up? That's one of the projects they described in the artile. Or a public art project that changes based on the number of people nearby? Concerts are only the beginning. Think of that silly Dance-Dance-Revolution game that all the kiddies these days are playing. I wonder what some game developer could do with this idea? Maybe a monument to some tragedy? When you step across some empty space a little light flickers somewhere in the distance.... not lit by a sensor, but by you. I don't know, maybe I'm just a romantic, but this seems like a cool idea for creative artistic types to run with.
My second point is a little more serious. As an energy professional, I'm fascinated by the idea of combining lots of small, discrete sources of energy and combining them into a cohesive whole. One of the more interesting developments in the energy industry (and let me make clear, I am a lawyer, not an engineer) has been the development of the tidal power industry. Sure, there are a few working prototypes (rather like this floor) that generate some level of power, but are not even close to being cost effective. And there are some places (think the Bay of Fundy) where massive wave power makes power generation relatively trivial.
But to my mind, the most interesting tidal projects are relatively passive ocean-based technologies that rely on small changes in the current or tides to generate power from a number of relatively small discrete events -- rather like a thousand people moving over a floor. Micro-wind turbines are similar.
And it may be old hat now, but a few years ago it was considered quite the energy challenge to hook up a bunch of discrete wind turbines or other generation sources and regulate the voltage properly to generate usable power. Isn't that essentially what these people are doing?
Don't get me wrong -- I know the floor idea is a novelty trick. But it's a cool novelty trick and maybe, perhaps, someday will become more. Who knows? But this is not some vaporware project or some company trying to drum up its stock price. Save the venom for someone who deserves it.
if i wanted to feel like i was walking along a beach all day then i'd do exactly that.
I weigh 185 pounds, but most people would consider me thin...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'm not entirely up on my Gibbon, but isn't the arrival of expensive masturbatory thinking regarding resources the prelude to an invasion of Goths? Hell, I'm from Florida, and there's already an army of them down there. The Emperor should look into it.
I know MIT is supposed to be the best and brightest, but this is the dimmest idea I've heard from a prestigious university in at least, oh, a month.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
I am picturing sinkers and floaters from mxc on the dance floor. lol.
If the mechanism is just a constant drag on the system (eg. this whole walking thread, or the Brit spinning plate thing, or harvesting the car-made breeze at the Jearsy turnpike), then that is otherwise **useful** energy being diverted and there is no real gain.
But consider regenerative braking (as per Prius). That does not create energy, but just harvests energy that would have otherwise be wasted i heat in the brake pads etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I don't think anyone in the U.S.A. could stand to lose any weight...
It sounds like Soylent Green all over again...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Already being done in Nippon.
Wouldn't it be easier, cheaper, and produce more energy to put up a big sign reading "FREE LIPOSUCTION", then burn the reclaimed McCalories?
Sheesh.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
You can use the generated power to run powered walkways for the tired commuters.
This will probably make it slightly harder (and more tiring) to walk on those surfaces. The energy has to come from somewhere.
I imagine it doesn't need to travel very far so I imagine it would be like walking with really cushioned shoes.
http://cheeseburgerbrown.com/stories/The_Bikes_of_ New_York.html
Instead of tiles and dynamos, which would be constantly creating an uneven surface and making things difficult for children, the elderly, people in wheelchairs, people on crutches, etc., why wouldn't you just use a rubber surface with piezos on the underside?
When walking on a hard surface, the energy of each step is dissipated in the form of vibration, sound, and heat, most of which is absorbed by your legs. Walking on a slightly softer (not sand soft, though) surface, allows the surface to depress slightly, which absorbs most of the impact. The reason walking on sand is much harder than walking on a hard surface is that the sand moves out of the way when you push against it, causing you to exert more muscle effort to take the same size step. On a soft surface that has the proper "springiness", the floor won't move out of the way as much. The combination of springy floor and floors that bend slightly on every step is exceedingly comfortable to walk on. Ask anyone who's walked on one of those horizontal escalators in airports with the rubber belt instead of the escalator steps (I know there are some in O'Hare airport; I'm sure there are other places, too). You feel positively lighter.
If we attached hundreds of tiny piezoelectric devices per square foot on the underside of the floor, they will be able to capture the energy in the bending of the floor. The advantage of this is that the wiring infrastructure could be printed, like a circuit board, on the underside of rubber sections of floor, each of which could be swapped out for maintenance or replacement individually. Economies of scale would be in effect, since production of each floor tile would be identical to all the others before installation. Additionally, this floor might even be *more* comfortable than standard tile, and still allows for free movement of kids, the elderly, and the handicapped.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Two reasons:
Meanwhile, just one commuter rail train coming in probably wastes more energy in braking along its route than a month of commuters could generate walking through the station courtyard.
...in a bag and go home. This will not be like walking on sand...i think they're a little smarter than that. I imagine it will be like walking on carpet where there was concrete before.
All the questions asked here are pretty much covered at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Harvesting#Pie zoelectric_energy_harvesting
have a travel of about 2'. step on the cracks.
sometimes, nothing.
A decent modern shoe is spring-like. It stores energy as you compress it, then gives back energy as you take off the weight.
I don't want some greedy floor stealing my energy.
You moonwalk on it?
Ever play track and field with a Nintendo PowerPad?
The continuous motion of ... never mind....
That starts with `d'.
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers
Basic physics: work = force * displacement.
You try to get rid of the "squishiness" of the floor because it's unpleasant to walk on, like walking on sand. But that squishiness is crucial: if the floor doesn't move, displacement = 0, and no work is done on the floor, so no energy can be extracted. Piezo crystals can tolerate large forces but allow only tiny tiny displacements: they can generate large voltages, but only miniscule amounts of energy.
You also do no work on a springy floor: you apply a force to push it down, and then it applies the same force to push you back up again, and the total force * displacement adds up to zero.
Squishy surfaces are exhausting to walk on *because* you have to do extra work. That energy doesn't come for free: you can feel it in your leg muscles. Any "more comfortable" alternative will generate little electrical energy.
But see the post above (text search for "1/200 horsepower"), which correctly points out that the amount of power generated will be miniscule.
This technology would last in *America* as long as it takes the first person to trip, fall and find a moneyhungry lawyer to sue the building owners for a billion dollars.
For a straightforward demolition of the concept, see this article at The Register.
The first time someone trips over one of these things and gets hurt (either real or faked) and sues, they're going to lose ever dime of the money they might have made--and then some.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Been there.. rejected that.
This is a re-use of an old idea back in the 60s' in which sidewalks would be used to generate power using the same method. Remember how we all were supposed to walk everywhere?
One of the major drawbacks of that design was that not enough people used it to justify the costs of maintaining it. That and you had to do a significant difference in heights to make the power work. These days maybe not given advancements.
These days I see another major issue in that if there is a major difference in hights you could restrict access by handicap users.
...We'll be able to solve the world's energy crisis...
If I do it right, like in John from Cincinnati, I'll have my lawyer right behind me when that stupid floor trips me up.
If all the exercise machines were in use 10 hours a day for a year, the gym could generate roughly $183 worth of electricity. At that rate, it would take about 82 years to pay off the initial $15,000 investment. An "entrepreneur" selling some expensive premade generators to add to premade exercise machines (with their own source of resistance) is not going to be cheap or efficient, and has no bearing on the cost for gyms to tap into lost energy.