"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."

Comments

Re:A better idea

[reddburn]

Some company in denmark is working on dance clubs that would work in a similar fashion (lights and volume powered by the activity on the dance floor). They debuted a working prototype of the floor (10 meters square) at the Live Earth concert. I just heard about it, but it sounds similar: http://www.sustainabledanceclub.com/