A spark of imagination has led to a
well-thought out plan involving shoes, energy, health and even a way to help
the environment.
For five enterprising year seven OranaSteiner School students, being part of the two-day Teen Start-Up Camp has
already led to great things.
Dana, Emellia, Ruby, Viktoria and Lucy won
third prize for their idea, were featured in a story in The Chronicle and are
now looking at ways to progress their idea to reality.
The students developed their ideas at the Teen Start-Up Camp. |
Their concept is a way of making shoes
generate energy to power small appliances.
And one of the reasons the concept did so
well was because it uses existing technology—floor tiles which harvest energy.
The idea of using ‘kinetic’ energy flashed
into their minds after the first day’s introduction.
‘After all it’s the energy that you get
when you’re walking and moving. Its being generated everywhere,’ they said.
The group thought through and dismissed a
raft of ideas before they decided on their prize-winning concept because it was
the most efficient.
Their ideas included wearing nailpolish to
generate energy typing, wearing a watch to create heat and wearing clothes that
would create energy from friction.
They also thought about coating car tyres
in the energy-harvesting tiles, but dismissed this because it wouldn’t
encourage people to walk.
The students said the Teen Start-Up Camp
taught them a lot about thinking quickly, thinking under pressure and working
in a group.
And next on the agenda is finding ways to
advertise and progress their idea.
‘We think there could be a bunch of people
working in energy who could work out ways to improve the project and make it a
reality,’ they said.
And the environment is also set to benefit
from this idea.
The students said that it would stop people
wasting energy, once they knew how much effort went into charging things we
take for granted.