Teenage inventor, Peter Ash, has designed a way to put his pet hamster to good use - by attaching his hamster's wheel to a generator he is able to charge his cell phone off the grid.
"I thought the wheel could be made to do something useful so I connected a system of gears and a turbine," he said. "Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about thirty minutes talk time on my phone."
His pet hamster, Elvis, does the legwork while Peter charges his phone in an economically and environmentally friendly way. Peter came up with the idea after his sister Sarah complained that Elvis was keeping her awake at night by playing for hours on his exercise wheel.
This is great idea and seems like a doable DIY - if it can work for a cell phone, it could also be used to power other small electronics such as an iPOD, lights, cameras, etc.
Unfortunately, Peter’s teacher didn’t appreciate the ingenuity of his project and he was only given a C grade for his project.
Via Treehugger, Ananova
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
lame teacher
view emilyalane's profile
Clever... but you still have to feed the hamster...
view hughbert's profile
hughbert, you have to feed a workhorse, too, but they served their purpose well, in their day, did they not?
Speaking of food, R & D at The Hamster Power Project will soon be collecting recipes for dealing with those slow running hamsters in our Hamster Brigade.
Peter, sorry to hear you fared poorly in your class...must be some kind of hamster bias.
view christiansoldier's profile