Image Source: Graphic / MIT School of Architecture and Planning

You’ve probably never considered crowds to be a renewable source of energy. Lucky for us, two smarty-pants grad students at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning are trying to figure it out.

James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk envision harvesting the mechanical energy from human movement – like commuters in a train station or fans at a rock concert – for electricity. This “crowd farm” would be a responsive sub-flooring system and made up of blocks that depress slightly when people step on them. When the blocks slip against each other they would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.

Crowds of people at a train station aren’t going to be enough to power the train itself: Graham and Jusczyk explain that thousands of people would be needed to make up the 28,527 steps needed to power a moving train for one second. But for smaller, very energy-efficient devices, the students’ idea could lead to something bigger: Their test case included a prototype stool that used the act of sitting to generate power. The weight of the body on the seat causes a flywheel to spin, which powers a dynamo that lights four LEDs (super-efficient lightbulbs).

The architecture students ultimately want an energy supply that’s integrated into a new sort of building system, one that harnesses the active power of humans to power a cleaner, more efficient lifestyle in the 21st century.

MIT News