(image – Flickr)
In the “so wacky it just might work” category, Taiwan students at Cheng Shiu University have invented a motorcycle helmet with five integrated wind turbines to power the bike’s headlights, turn signal lights and tail lights. The helmet starts generating energy when the bike’s running and distributes the power using a Bluetooth transmitter. Four batteries embedded into the helmet store the electricity generated by the fans.
The gadgets in this bizarro product will cost around 1,000 Taiwan dollars (30 US dollars), which doesn’t include the cost of the helmet. The university says it plans to find a factory to mass-produce the helmets, but meanwhile the students are trying to improve the product by cutting the weight and size of the fans and using smaller batteries. Not sure what happens at red traffic lights though.
The students fixed five tiny fans that are also generators onto the front of the helmet so that when the motorcycle starts running, wind blow the fans and the fans produce electricity, said Professor Chen Feng-shih, who supervised the invention.
Power transmitted by bluetooth? Er… not sure about that one. Next we'll all be putting up aerials to suck up wayward mobile phone signals to power our tellies. Hey, now that would be neat :-)
Also, isn't there a "law of diminishing returns" thing here? If not, then all bikes and cars will soon be having turbines attached. Further more, when your battery is full, you can use the turbine to blow air at your neighbours so they get to share in the love.
PS. Excellent picture :-)
Neck strain !
At 100 km/h, that's 28 meters per second.
1 Joule of energy is 1 Newton x 1 meter
1 Watt is 1 Joule per second
1 Watt is 1 Newton x 1 meter per second
So 28 Watts at 28 meters per second exerts a force of 1 Newton
=100grams.
10% efficiency would give a drag of a kilogram on the rider's head for 28 Watts.
An alternator or dynamo should be more efficient anyway !
I love motorbikes, but can't afford to ride a big one.