in econ, we were supposed to "invent" something. i came up with a body-heat powered mp3 player. the generator is a small vaccum containor with water and a turbine type thingy in it. the turbine thingy turns the magnet in the genorator. i suppose there may need to be a transformer and a capacitor added as well.

 

would it work?

Id imagine it would take way more heat than body heat to power this thing, are you going by the idea of storing the charge like one of those shakeup flashlights?

 

 

If so, what about one which is powered by body movement?

no......have you seen a container with water in which the air is pumped out? body heat is more than enough to make the water boil.

it isnt about the water boiling... its energy in vs energy out.

 

if the body heat you give off where ever the device is is less than the energy the device needs it doesnt matter how easily the water boils. it takes force to turn a turbine, especially when its hooked up to a generator. that force has to come from somewhere.

then it's a question of how much heat the human body produces?

The problem is we don't have mini-sized turbines. Not that I know of. I think a solar panel or a movement->electricity type of generator would work better. You know those watches that can run forever given you keep moving your wrist around.

something that uses the pendulum motion of walking to power a digital audio player would be 1337, not sure how much that generates as pedometers don't power themselves from it do they? Which I'd have thought was an obviouse move, unless it'd afect the measurements or something :s

The problem is we don't have mini-sized turbines. Not that I know of.

it wouldn't be too hard to make.

Why don't you make use of the fact that humans breathe alot, and use a chest pad sort of thing to collect energy everytime we breathe?

or if he makes it extract too much energy he can suffocate people by not allowing them to breathe.

Oh, yes, easy !

 

Wear this as a hat:

 

http://www.jerry-howell.com/Miser.html

 

http://www.nmri.go.jp/eng/khirata/stirling/kiriki/models/plm_top.html

 

http://www.stirlingengine.co.uk/

 

and attach a tiny generator to it.

 

Miguel