People power to create energy
August 3rd 2007 Energy created through human movement could be harvested to produce electricity, if proposals from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) become a reality.
Ideal in highly populated urban setting, such as stations or concerts, the "Crowd Farm" would convert the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into a source of electricity.
According to the MIT it would work through a responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress under the force of human steps. 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.
The system was the brainchild of M.Arch candidates James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk who say the current generated by the Crowd Farm could be used for educational purposes such as lighting up a sign about energy. "We want people to understand the relationship between their movement and the energy produced," says Jusczyk.
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