DIY: walking for power vs. power-walking

Sustainable Dance Floor, Sustainable Dance Club

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Studies conducted in 2007 revealed that longer legs and upright walking, compared to a chimp's shorter stride and crouched gait, may have given humans a leg-up in evolution. Walking upright is more energy-efficient.

Now scientists and innovators are working on converting what energy we do expend to power our cell phones and other devices. Engineer Patrick Chapman at Illinois University gives some basics on using bodily motion for power in From power walking to walking for power: Harnessing human motion to power electronics (2009). An interesting article with tables giving energy expended for various activities is Kinetic energy harvesting: Everyday human activity could power the internet of things. Columbia University's project is called EnHANTs.

Currently being reported as possible transformers of human energy are flexible cloth, body heat, and piezoelectric conversion of stress to electricity (fiber nanogenerator).

For more info and info that's up-to-date, there's a site called Wearable Technologies. One of the products found at the site is Ampy--also on Kickstarter (a video is below).

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Googling "energy harvesting products" returns a host of sites offering devices like energy harvesters; actuators and sensors; haptic feedback actuators; and cooling (these are all piezo; example taken from Mide Technology). Use them to develop your own harvester.

Then there are buildings and surfaces that harvest the energy of the people that use them, such as the Sustainable Dance Floor.

-- Marge