"Crowd Farm" to Collect Energy? 357
Cain writes to mention that a couple of MIT students would like to harness the mechanical power of large groups of people. "A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current."
A better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Why make it so hard? Just hook the dynamo up to the turnstiles instead.
Re:A better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
One possible drawback (Score:3, Insightful)
If the tiles sink... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The people power the city huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Good concept, bad venue... (Score:1, Insightful)
Energy doesn't come for free (Score:3, Insightful)
FTA:
So let's collect energy so we can waste it?
I wonder what it feels like walking on this floor - there's got to be some difference since the energy I normally expend is only enough to hold me up. If there's no perpetual motion machine here then doesn't the energy ultimately come from my breakfast?
bigger fish to fry- what a stupid project (Score:5, Insightful)
The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.
Ever walked in sand? It's many, many times slower and harder. So what are they going to do with travellers that are already exhausted from travel? Piss them off with a hard-to-walk-on floor. There's also NEVER 30,000 people in South Station; where did they get that number from? Let's put this in perspective: Fenway stadium, average summer weekend game, is ~30,000 people. Even at peak commuter rush hour, I think you'd be hard pressed to find even one TENTH that number of people at any one time.
The electric current generated by the Crowd Farm could then be used for educational purposes, such as lighting up a sign about energy.
Wow. Oh. Wow.
The MBTA (which is BILLIONS of dollars in debt) and Amtrak (same...) have much bigger priorities than some stupid concept like this. How about PA systems which actually work (and don't broadcast "please report suspicious packages, safety is our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY!" every 2 minutes), bus fareboxes which work in cold weather, online lookup+refilling of Charliecard balances, integration of Charliecards into the parking garages, or online bus status? (the busses have been equipped for years with such a capability.)
Or even the "signaling" systems in the orange line which are constantly broken, or replacing more cars on the green line (the newer cars use much more efficient motors which are also capable of regenerative braking), same for the red line. The entire orange and blue lines are also non-regenerative braking as well.
hell no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet another silly energy article (Score:5, Insightful)
They're overlooking something (Score:4, Insightful)
The real engineering trick with this design is explaining to the people that they're not just rats on a treadmill. That's not an easy problem for MIT kids to solve on their slide rules...
Especially if they're going to put systems like this in "crowd" areas - crowds aren't only composed of healthy adults, they also contain children, disabled people, etc. How hard would it be to push a wheelchair across this thing?
An old idea, hardly visionary (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives/Roman_Slave_Ship.h
Re:School Science (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't this make it harder to walk? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Already Done (kind of) in Britain (Score:5, Insightful)
Reason why it won't be feasible: (Score:3, Insightful)
Reason why this flooring system won't be feasible:
1. Cost: flooring alone costs up to 200 $/sf for tiling installed in public areas, not to mention cost of this type of floor proposed.
2. Feasibility: There is going to be a lot of mechanical devices, lots of wiring, a computer system, moving parts, shifting parts, all of which will need to be maintained.
3. Serviceability: The flooring will have to have some sort of diagnosis features as well maintenance access much like escalators probably. What happens when someone spills fluids, tracks in dirt, sand, drops paper clips into the joints, etc.? How about the physical surface cleaning requirements, will the floor be able to be cleaned waxed with conventional equipment?
4. Aesthetics: Probably a major factor, is the deflections of the flooring, even if somehow minimized, people can still feel minute deflections. This is true in the design of buildings where the limiting design factor for a floor is not the dead and live loading conditions but the deflection criteria. You don't want people vibrating when someone walks past, the same will most likely be true on this flooring.
Re:The people power the city huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The people power the city huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
You may want to actually. As you know, energy isn't appearing out of nowhere and doesn't go nowhere.
It may be harder to walk on blocks that slightly depress as you walk on them. Sort of like walking in mud, but not that bad.
They could explain exercise is good for you, but if you're trying to go back home after a tiresome day, you may not enjoy the compulsory experience.
Re:A better idea (Score:3, Insightful)
It is good to meet girl in park, but it is better to park meat in girl.
They are not trying to generate power! (Score:4, Insightful)
These inventors are not trying to produce power on a commercial or even residential scale. They are creating an innovative urban design tool. Once you beyond all the silly slashdot pseudo physicists panning an idea they do not understand or even bother to read about, this is actually a great concept.
First, it has a wonderful potential to enlighten and enthrall children. I know when I was 8, I would have loved running across a floor and seeing something happen. Where's the wonder? The curiosity? Wouldn't you think it was neat (even today) to sit on a subway car and see an LCD light power-up? That's one of the projects they described in the artile. Or a public art project that changes based on the number of people nearby? Concerts are only the beginning. Think of that silly Dance-Dance-Revolution game that all the kiddies these days are playing. I wonder what some game developer could do with this idea? Maybe a monument to some tragedy? When you step across some empty space a little light flickers somewhere in the distance.... not lit by a sensor, but by you. I don't know, maybe I'm just a romantic, but this seems like a cool idea for creative artistic types to run with.
My second point is a little more serious. As an energy professional, I'm fascinated by the idea of combining lots of small, discrete sources of energy and combining them into a cohesive whole. One of the more interesting developments in the energy industry (and let me make clear, I am a lawyer, not an engineer) has been the development of the tidal power industry. Sure, there are a few working prototypes (rather like this floor) that generate some level of power, but are not even close to being cost effective. And there are some places (think the Bay of Fundy) where massive wave power makes power generation relatively trivial.
But to my mind, the most interesting tidal projects are relatively passive ocean-based technologies that rely on small changes in the current or tides to generate power from a number of relatively small discrete events -- rather like a thousand people moving over a floor. Micro-wind turbines are similar.
And it may be old hat now, but a few years ago it was considered quite the energy challenge to hook up a bunch of discrete wind turbines or other generation sources and regulate the voltage properly to generate usable power. Isn't that essentially what these people are doing?
Don't get me wrong -- I know the floor idea is a novelty trick. But it's a cool novelty trick and maybe, perhaps, someday will become more. Who knows? But this is not some vaporware project or some company trying to drum up its stock price. Save the venom for someone who deserves it.
Re:The people power the city huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Walk over concrete. Now walk over sand. Which one takes more effort? The mechanical motion of the floor absorbs energy that would otherwise rebound from the shoe sole, or would never have been expended in the first place.
Tiles? (Score:5, Insightful)
When walking on a hard surface, the energy of each step is dissipated in the form of vibration, sound, and heat, most of which is absorbed by your legs. Walking on a slightly softer (not sand soft, though) surface, allows the surface to depress slightly, which absorbs most of the impact. The reason walking on sand is much harder than walking on a hard surface is that the sand moves out of the way when you push against it, causing you to exert more muscle effort to take the same size step. On a soft surface that has the proper "springiness", the floor won't move out of the way as much. The combination of springy floor and floors that bend slightly on every step is exceedingly comfortable to walk on. Ask anyone who's walked on one of those horizontal escalators in airports with the rubber belt instead of the escalator steps (I know there are some in O'Hare airport; I'm sure there are other places, too). You feel positively lighter.
If we attached hundreds of tiny piezoelectric devices per square foot on the underside of the floor, they will be able to capture the energy in the bending of the floor. The advantage of this is that the wiring infrastructure could be printed, like a circuit board, on the underside of rubber sections of floor, each of which could be swapped out for maintenance or replacement individually. Economies of scale would be in effect, since production of each floor tile would be identical to all the others before installation. Additionally, this floor might even be *more* comfortable than standard tile, and still allows for free movement of kids, the elderly, and the handicapped.
you assume bad shoes (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't want some greedy floor stealing my energy.