Five teams of talented students in Thailand won gold awards at the International Exhibition for Young Inventors (IEYI) 2012, an annual international event that was this year held in Bangkok. The winning teams created inventions that tackled contemporary lifestyle issues and the one we are most interested in, of course, has to do with hooping. Will we really be able to charge our cell phones by hula hooping someday? The Bangkok Post reports that one of the inventions employed hula hooping to charge mobile phone batteries. The brainchild of Apisit Wannarancsri and Jukkit Buppha from Samutsakhon Wittayalai School, the hula hoop battery charger was inspired by two familiar scenes they see every day in Thailand, people playing with hula hoops and people using mobile phones. Electricity is generated when 12 magnets in the hula hoop react with copper wire which has been wrapped in fabric and sewn into in a belt. The circuit is created by the belt and the electric current is transformed from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC), which can be used to power a mobile phone. We can’t wait to order one!
I love this! Totally Brilliant!!!!