Canada Ping!
Posted on 06/30/2013 2:01:44 AM PDT by rawhide
...and earns spot in Google Science Fair finals
This girl's science project really puts your baking soda volcano to shame
A 15-year-old girl in Canada has invented a flashlight that only needs the warmth of the hand to turn on.
Ann Makosinski, a high school junior in Victoria, British Columbia, was trying to think of a way of harvesting untapped energy when she was inspired to make the flashlight.
She realized that the warmth generated by the human body was an overlooked energy source.
Her project objective was to create a flashlight that ran solely off the heat of the hand.
That objective was accomplished when she discovered Peltier tiles, which produce electricity when one side of the tile is heated and the other is cooled.
Makosinski realized she could use these tiles to create energy for her flashlight if she left the device hollow.
Holding the flashlight on the outside would cause the tiles to heat up on one side while the ambient air would cool down the tile on the inside of the flashlight.
The power created by the tiles was enough to power an LED light, but it did not create enough voltage.
To troubleshoot that issue she created a circuit that would allow for transformers, upping the voltage.
It worked! The flashlight does have one issue: it works better in colder temperatures since the inside is better able to cool down comparative to the person's body heat.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Canada ping
Canada Ping!
It’s a great idea... our bodies run lots of systems - why not a flashlight... etc.
Not an invention, just a story that is catching on in the media because it has a girl in it. The peltier effect has been known since 1834, its not commonly used because its not efficient or effective in most cases. She might as well have strapped a solar panel to a flash light and called it an invention.
Don’t ruin FReepers dreams!!
Strap a piece of buttered toast to a cat's back and drop from a 5-story building.
Making that scheme work requires an expensive carpet underneath to attract the buttered toast. Dropping the cat from shoulder height should be sufficient. :=)
The drop height is to allow the cat-toast combo to achieve terminal velocity, and then convert same to angular velocity at a height above ground level of ~8-10”.
8~)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.