To all people who struggle with keeping their phones charged while on the go, and to others who forget their chargers at home when they need it the most: there is a possibility that you could one day buy a pair of shoes that can charge your phone.
No Catchy Name For It Yet, But It’s A Promising Project
Furkan Faruk Aslan, from Meslin, Turkey, is developing shoes that can charge your phone as you walk. Hikers, tourists and general people that are always on the run could have the chance to keep their battery life safe. For those who are more sedentary, perhaps the setback will encourage a little extra exercise in the absence of an electric plug.
Faruk Aslan, a high school student, already has a prototype of the project, and he explains that by inserting a magnetic dynamo on the shoe’s heel and moving it, it’s able to release electricity from a 9-volt battery. As of now, a 200 meter jog, the phone starts to recharge.
This project is not the only one of it’s kind, as we’ve seen in past years other people from around the world attempting to build shoes that were made for charging, and they all faced a similar plight: the time for exercising vs the time for charging was too large.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfvRWcIJzpY
This is Not The First Time It’s Been Proposed
Fifteen year old Angelo Casimiro had a similar campaign in 2014, but one had to jog for at least eight hours to charge a lithium ion battery, and nearly two hours of heavy exercise for a ten minute phone charge. Similarly, a campaign named SolePower designed a shoe insole that charged a battery strapped to the shoe itself, which can then be removed to charge your smartphone. This design, however, is bulkier than Faruk Aslan’s idea, which does follow the principle of charging while walking.
Faruk Aslan hopes, if his project gets green-lit, to close this gap, as well as to find a way to use clean energy without fuel to set the shoe in gear.
Though the idea is not original, it’s still fresh and hasn’t been spread to the mass market yet. The fact that this campaign fights both for clean energy and encourages exercise is enough indication that projects like these are the ones that should be widespread.
You can give him your support here.
