Ann Makosinski, a 15-year-old high school student from British Columbia, has developed a thermoelectrically based flashlight that can be powered by the warmth of one’s hand.
Ann Makosinski holding her Hollow Flashlight.
She achieved this feat by first determining that the heat of a person’s palm generates approximately 57 milliwatts of electricity, way more than the half of a milliwatt necessary for illuminating her flashlight’s LED.
Once she had the numbers figured out, Makosinski set out to get the parts necessary to turn her concept into an actual device. Top on her shopping list: Peltier tiles, a technology that can produce electricity when warmed on one side and cooled on the other.
When she had the tiles, LEDs, and all the other necessary circuitry together, Makosinski began working on the actual mounting of everything inside a hollow aluminum tube. Her goal was to have everything positioned in such a way that the ambient air inside the tube would cool one side of the tiles while the heat from the user’s hand would transfer through the aluminum and warm the other side.
The Hollow Flashlight is both ergonomic and efficient.
After playing around with the placement of the tiles and tweaking the voltage a bit, Makosinski was able to create a device that was not only ergonomic, but also something thermodynamically efficient — it needs just a 5º difference in temperature in order to produce up to 5.4 mW at 5 foot-candles of brightness.
What’s more, in terms of performance, the device can provide a half hour of lighting at a temperature of just 50º!
Watch Makosinski explain her Hollow Flashlight project step by step:
The results of Makosinski’s efforts have landed her a spot on the list of 15 finalists at the Google Science Fair being held in September, where the company will select a winner to receive $50,000 and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.
Looking beyond the Google Science Fair, Makosinski is excited by the prospects of what this device has to offer, as described on the Fair’s website:
“In the future, I hope to work on improving efficiencies of the converter, increase the flashlight brightness, and perhaps use this technology for powering wireless medical sensors. My unique circuit and design has infinite possibilities and uses for the future! For example, imagine holding your phone, and at the same time charging it just from the heat of your hand! Or perhaps all school chairs in classrooms having Peltier tiles, and we could harvest the heat and amplify it into electricity using my method. I am very excited for the possibilities my project has! It is but a means of showing what this concept, and what human heat energy, can do.”
Story via: Google Science Fair
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