Innovative Shoe Attachment Generates Electricity When Walking

Everyone is trying to harvest energy as seamlessly and efficiently as possible. There are large innovations that power entire neighborhoods as well as small innovations that only power small gadgets like our smartphones. The endeavor of trying to find the most optimized and efficient way to harvest energy is always going to continue. A group of students over at Rice University Mechanical Engineering have come up with a shoe attachment that generates power with every step you take.

The goal of this innovation is to provide a power source that will never run out so it can power an artificial heart device, and to secure its constant need for power. As some of you know, we have featured a lot of energy generating devices here at Bit Rebels, but few have been as simple yet innovative as this one. With a series of mechanical pullies and levers, the shoe attachment mechanism generates energy with every step the wearer takes. With a bit if refinement, this shoe attachment (dubbed PediPower) will be able to generate, store and distribute power to the necessary devices it’s meant to power.

The refinement would be to make it smaller and more incorporated into the shoe itself so the shoe attachment doesn’t make the wearer change his or her daily activities due to bulk or a visual inconvenience. The innovation’s sponsor, Cameron, is developing an artificial heart which they hope to power by a similar device spawned from the innovation that this group of students have been able to come up with.

A smaller device, even though it might still be visible as a shoe attachment, could very well have other purposes too. For example, it could also power our smartphones in order to always keep us juiced up. The applications are endless when you start thinking about it. At the current time, the shoe attachment might not be the most high-end fashion statement, but as the students explain, with a bit of refining and fine tuning this device could easily get rid of all the bulky and visually obnoxious parts. I am sure that we’ll definitely see more of this in the coming years ahead. It might not be “free” energy, but at least we’d be generating it ourselves and without polluting our environment.