Ever wished that you could put your pedal power to good use, by charging your mobile phone while your ride? Now you can thanx to the team at Siva Cycles who have designed the ATOM – a lightweight, highly efficient bicycle generator. Apart from being a green minded, modern commuter’s dream, the Atom also has great potential to transform the lives of people living without access to electricity, enabling them to power their mobile devices and even lights by riding their bicycles.
All posts in Design Like You give a Damn
DIY Smartphone Speakers
This has to be the easiest way to boost the speaker sound on your ipod, iphone or smart phone. Don’t expect it to sound like a high-end audio system, but the volume does increase a few decibels! Follow our DIY steps and hear for yourself.
Designing a Bicycle Culture
“The City on Bike” is a series of talks by the Bicycle Innovation Lab around urban design, lifestyle and bicycle culture. This video features interviews with Danish designer Jens Martin Skibsted and Mikael Colville Andersen (Copenhangenize/Cycle Chic).
Gravity Powered Lamp
GravityLight is a revolutionary new approach to storing energy and creating illumination that is powered soley by gravity. The lamp uses no batteries or fuel and has no operating costs after the initatal purchase price of $5 making it a fantastic alternative to the expensive and hazardous kerosene lanterns, which are widely used in developing countries.
Re-gifting
This festive season the internet is full of creative ideas for eco- conscious gifting. The one that stood out the most was re- gifting. To put it simply re-gifting is giving people gifts that you have received that you don’t want or need and that you know they would love! Thanx to the creative team at Brain Pickings and their Regifting API , re-gifting is fast becoming a socially acceptable and cool way of gift-giving and leaving it’s stigmas behind.
Grow – DIY Moss Graffiti
Moss graffiti is the eco-warrior’s answer to traditional chemical laced spray paint! Click the arrows to see Show Me How‘s illustrated, easy to use guide to making your own living, breathing work of art. Not only is Moss graffiti perfect for environmental messaging, it is also a fun form of guerrilla gardening.
Pedal Powered Food Processor
With the energy crunch around the corner, isn’t it nice to know that you can take your morning smoothie off grid!!
Created by Christoph Thetard the R2B2 is a multi-functional, pedal-powered kitchen machine that can be used for a variety of food processing tasks from blending to grinding coffee. The machine is powered by a rotating flywheel that when pedaled at 400rpm generates 350 watts of power per minute, enough to handle most daily kitchen tasks.
The Potato Battery
Yesterday I discovered natures most versatile energy source – potatoes. With a few tweaks your everyday carbo load can be turned into a super spud that can power an alarm clock!!
Powered by Trees
Imagine a forest that could power its own network of sensors to monitor ecosystem health. Well, this idea is fast turning from sci-fi into reality as more scientits explore how to harvest the metabolic energy from non-animal organisms such as trees.
The latest research by Andreas Mershin’s team at MIT shows that using electrodes made of the same metal gives a current, the electricity comes from a difference in pH between the tree and the soil, a chemical imbalance that is created by the tree’s metabolic processes!
While we are a long way off from powering a light bulb, this is surely an glimpse of a green energy future.
Full article: Newscientist.com
More info: Voltreepower.com
Cover photograph by: Chad Stetson
Citrus Powered Clock
The Citrus Clock is an experimental timepiece designed by Anna Gram that actually runs on lemons! It works by using the same principles of electrolysis that is used in conventional electric batteries. The acid of the open-faced lemon interacts with the copper and zinc plug it sits on to create enough power to run the digital clock for a week or longer.
“This pedagogic project is a kind of shortcut intended to remind ourselves that nature, in spite of the various transformations to which we subject her, is still our direct energy source. ”
by ANNA GRAM’ [ florian dussopt + julie girard ] + Atelier Chauvet (cabinet maker) + Anthemis (electronic)
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