Most schools may claim they’re trying to harness the energy of their students, but one school in Kent has made this claim a reality.
At Simon Langton Boys’ Grammar School in Canterbury, a corridor has been laid with special tiles that can absorb kinetic energy and convert it to electricity. As the kids bustle down the corridor and over the tiles, their youthful abandon becomes useful energy – enough over a year to charge 853 mobile phones, light a bulb for two months or drive an electric car seven miles.
Originally tested at the Olympic Games and the Science Museum, the tiles have been created by Laurence Kemball-Cook, a former pupil of the school, via his company Pavegen.
Could the days of schoolchildren being told not to run in corridors be at an end? Are we entering a new era when games of British Bulldog could be used to power the kettle, or could wet willies be the solution to the world’s clean energy conundrum? Time will tell - all we know is the nation's bullies could finally be getting their dream of a justification for wedgies.
(Image: Rex)
[via Independent]
