Day: May 6, 2014

SolePower

Illustration by Lucas Nene/Sole Power

Each thud of a hiker’s heel releases enough energy to illuminate a light bulb. Rather than waste that power, Matt Stanton, an engineer and avid backpacker, created a shoe insole that stores it as electricity. The device promises to be an improvement over traditional, hefty power packs as well as solar chargers, which work slowly or not at all, depending on the weather.

Stanton worked closely with Hahna Alexander, a fellow Carnegie Mellon University engineering student, over three years to create the SolePower system. Instead of using piezoelectric and other inefficient, bulky methods of generating electricity, the pair shrunk down components similar to those found in hand-cranked flashlights. The result is a near standard–size removable insole that weighs less than five ounces, including a battery pack, and charges electronics via USB.

SolePower’s current version, to be released later this year, requires a lengthy 15-mile walk to charge a smartphone. But Stanton says the company is working toward a design that can charge an iPhone after less than five miles of hiking and withstand about 100 million footsteps of wear and tear. 

How It Works:

1) A drivetrain converts the energy of heel strikes into rotational energy, spinning magnetic rotors.

2) The motion of the rotors induces an electrical current within coils of wire.

3) Electricity travels along a wire and into a lithium-ion polymer battery pack on a wearer’s shoelaces.

Lead inventors: Hahna Alexander, Matt Stanton

Development cost to date: $300,000

Company: Sole Power LLC

Market Maturity: •••••

 

Click here to see a flat bike helmet, a robotic exoskeleton, and more from our 2014 Invention Awards.

This article originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of Popular Science.

Gallup

Gallup is out with a new poll and accompanying map measuring responses to this question: "Regardless of whether you will move, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move to another state, or would you rather remain in your current state?"

Big insights from the geographic misery watch? Illinois residents would rather not be residents, with 50 percent (!) saying they’d move if given the chance; 49 percent of Connecticut residents said the same. On the other end of the spectrum, folks are pretty content in Montana, Hawaii, and Maine, with a relatively slim 23 percent in each state saying they’d like to move on. Here, again via Gallup, is a table of the highest and lowest percentages:

Gallup

Gallup also measured the percentage of residents who said they think they will leave in the next year, which, as you might expect, broadly reflect the states where people already want to move. When asked why they planned to move, here’s what they said:

Those saying it is at least somewhat likely they will move were asked to say why, in their own words. The biggest factor residents give for planning to move is for work or business reasons — the 50-state average is 31%. This is followed by family or other social reasons (19%), weather or location (11%), and then seeking a better quality of life or change (9%).

You can read more about the poll’s methodology over at Gallup’s site. But only if you feel like moving is the right decision for you at this moment in your life.

[Gallup]