Help needed

[katie burns]

Hello, I'm a student studying product design engineering in Scotland. Our current project involves harnessing energy from everyday sources such as walking, wind, or door closing, and transforming it into a practical application. Our concept focuses on utilizing the energy generated by the contact between the bottom of a shoe and the ground to create a pedometer (step counter). This could be displayed directly or accessed through a smart device to track the number of steps taken. Additionally, we're exploring the possibility of integrating this step count into a jibbitz for Crocs. Any suggestions, ideas, or tips on how we can proceed with this project would be greatly appreciated!

 

[rb1957]

oh dear ... sorry but "harness the energy from walking" ?? isn't that the work done by ... walking ?? what "surplus" energy are you talking about ?

if you mean to generate energy by walking around, then the walker will have to increase their energy expenditure to give you something to harvest.

a hamster wheel comes to mind, together with a neat way to collect the energy (being in one place, not "walking around". and you could probably siphon off some of the produced energy to "goad" the "victim" into producing more ... Dickens anyone ??

another idea would to have people walk up a ramp (gain PE) then release and collect this PE (as KE) as they return to ground, and repeat.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

 

[IRstuff]

There are, or were, watches that recharged using normal body motions. Anything else will require additional energy expenditures from the user, i.e., there is no free lunch.

Almost any smart watch and all fitness trackers already does step counting, so from a user perspective, why would they buy special shoes or attachments to shoes to get redundant data, since anyone that cares enough about the data already owns something that does that function, and it likely has other additional functions like heart rate.

Anything that "could be displayed directly or accessed through a smart device" will require a battery/recharging; body motion is usually insufficient to power even Bluetooth on a regular basis.

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[SkipVought]

Check out self-winding wrist watches...

https://wristporn.com/blogs/news/what-is-a-self-winding-watch-complete-guide

Skip,

_{Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance!}

 

[LittleInch]

The energy you can harvest for these things is minute, really really small.

So you're looking at some sort of piezo electric plate to generate microwatts of power or pulses.

Try looking at those kid s shoes that light up and flash when they run around. Take one of those apart to see how they do it. Actually with a battery by the look of it....

But something simialr.

Search "piezoelectric shoes project report" - you're not the first.....



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