Previously we had talked about how piezoelectricity can be used for a myriad of innovative conceptions ranging from nano scale generators, sidewalks to even showers and energy generating fabrics. But Korean designers Yonggu Do, Jun-se Kim and Eun-ha Seo have found a more conventional use for it, in the form of powering our very own tablets and smartphones.
According to the designers, statistically on an average, users press their touch screens over 10,000 times a day. So they have contrived of an ingenious system dubbed simply as the Ecopad, where the tablet or any similar device can utilize the piezoelectricity generated by that ‘tapping’ of touch screens. This in effect forgoes the need for those cumbersome adapters (and any power source for that matter), while the device can literally be self powered throughout a period of days.
For those who are not acquainted with piezoelectricity – it is the charge which accumulates in certain solid materials (notably crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA and various proteins) in response to applied mechanical strain.
And as for the novel yet convenient concept, it was one of the seven entries that received the ‘judge’s special award’ among over 3000 participants from Designboom competition – ‘A life with future computing’. The competition was organized in collaboration with FUJITSU and DA.
Source: DesignBoom
