Many of us have been bestowed the project of a pen pal in
school. Teachers assign these projects in hopes of children being able
to get a glimpse of another child’s life and culture, opening their mind
to how other kids around the world live.
Hannah Herbst, a 15-year old
teenager in Florida, did not take this project lightly but used her pen
pal’s story to inspire a pretty impressive invention for harnessing
energy from ocean currents.
“I found out that she’s
living in energy poverty, and she doesn’t have access to things that I
take for granted every day,” Herbst explains the motivation from her 9-
year old pen pal in Ethiopia. “Then I was boating with my family through
the Boca Raton Inlet, and our boat was really jerked around by the
current. I thought, why not use this power?”
Knowing
that this very clever idea had a ton of potential, Herbst, entered a
the 2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and worked
with a 3M scientist to assist in the concept and design. The final
result garnered the competition’s 1st place prize. The prototype
consisted of a 3D printed propeller linked to a hydroelectric generator,
allowing waves to move the propeller and provide water power to the
generator. Herbst’s design boasts sustainability by utilizing natural
energy but also affordable parts that cost just $12 for the model.
The
simple prototype is not bulky and can not power a house but its design
constructed of recycled parts can fuel enough power to run a small
desalination machine, filtering ocean water into safe drinking water.
Herbst
has future plans to open source it, aiming to have global accessibility
with it’s relatively simple parts. A project that started out just
hearing a woes of her pen pal ended with a potential movement to make
electricity more accessible to everyone around the world.
Source: Fast Company
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