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Fifteen year old Tenth grader Ann Makosinski, with her body heat powered flashlight, has attained a position within the fifteen finalists who will be going to the Google Campus in Mountain View California to compete for the grand prize of $50,000.
"Hollow Flashlight" can be powered by the heat of a hand.
On researching she stumbled across a device called the Peltier tiles.
Peltier tiles can produce energy when it is heated on one side and cooled on the other. She experimented with these device ( Peltier tles) in her seventh grade science project and thought it can potentially capture the thermal energy produced by the human body.
She discovered that the amount of energy produced by the warmth of a person's hand was more than enough energy to power a LED flashlight. She bought Peltier tiles from Ebay but the tiles generated only a fraction of the voltage needed. On more researching she made some changes to the design of the circuit, transformers could be used to boost the voltage.
She came across an article on the web about energy harvesting that suggested an affordable circuit that would provide the voltage she needed when used with a recommended transformer.
The flashlight is made up of an aluminum tube, obtained from a mechanical shop at the University of Victoria, where her father works as a laboratory manager. The aluminum was used to transfer the cooler temperatures of the air to one side of the Peltier tiles.
Also a PVC tube from Home Depot used to house the aluminum tube, with an opening cut in it to allow a person's hand to come in contact with the other side of the Peltier tiles.
All these materials cost a total of around $26, and if it were to be mass produced Makosinski says it can be manufactured and sold for a much lower price.
Makosinski is looking forward to her trip to the Google headquarters.
She said,
I just can't believe that I actually made it this far.
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