MIT Students Develop a Creative Way to Make Electricity

Students at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, have always been known for their innovative and unique ideas and two of their graduate students in the School of Architecture, James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk have come up with an idea that does the school proud.

They have come up with an idea to transform the energy that people create when doing things like walking, or jumping or any activity like that and turning it into electricity. Their idea, which they entered into the Japan-based Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition this year is to turn a place like a train station, where there are plenty of people rushing around to create plenty of energy, into what they call a "Crowd Farm."

And this is how they would do it, using Boston's South Station rail terminal. There would be a sub floor, under the current one in the station's main lobby, that would be made up of blocks that are made to depress every so slightly when they are stepped upon. The blocks would slip against one another and that would create power, much like the way power is created in a dynamo.

They would use that energy created to light up a sign about energy. They say this type of creation is not for home use. An average home would hardly generate enough energy to light a bulb for a few seconds, but in a place like a train station or a sports stadium or a rock concert could create some really usable electricity. They give the example of having enough energy created at a rock concert to make the music louder.

They have already done a test case in a train station in Torino, Italy that gets its energy from a little different source. They used the same principle in a stool that used the energy created by the act of just sitting on the stool to generate power. The weight of the body on the seat makes a fly wheel spin. The fly wheel powers a dynamo and the dynamo lights up four LEDs.

It has turned out to be a big attraction with people going up and down on the stool to watch the lights.

Since that are both in the School of Architecture, they envision buildings with this system on every floor, a building that would, in part, generate its own electricity.