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Rice Harvest

HARVEST

 

Member profile details

Membership level
2013-2014 Team
Team Name
Rice Harvest
Project Title
HARVEST
Design Challenge
Cameron wishes to challenge the minds
of Project Design Team to research, conceive, and design components that will enable a minimum of 2 watts of power to be harvested from the agitation of human movements. Input sources for the agitation of self-powering device could include walking if mounted on a person’s body, or hand or a person traveling by an automobile, or a ship due to Ocean Current. The perturbations or agitation caused by these vibratory conditions or any equivalent agitation that could result in vibratory motion of a piece of the equipment. This project was first time developed by a group of smart and dedicated engineers, from Rice University, in 2012. The goal of this project is to either improve the existing design by “Agitation Squad” and/or start from a clean slate to achieve the required specifications.
Design Summary
Rice Harvest has designed PowerGait, a green energy harvester using the power of human motion while walking. This system harvests 4 watts of average power during an average gait cycle, and will be able to power small electronic devices through the energy which would otherwise be dissipated into the environment.

PowerGait is a portable generator which attaches to a particular brand of knee brace of differing sizes. During the motion of walking, a rod that is rigidly fixed to the knee brace along the lower leg rotates an input shaft of a gear train. Through this simple gear reduction system, the leg’s high torque/low RPM motion is converted to a low torque/high RPM motion, capable of rotating an induction generator at above 3000 RPM. The electricity generated in this system will eventually be stored in batteries attached to the hip, available for use.
Sponsors
Cameron
Department(s)
  • Mechanical Engineering
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Faculty Advisor 1 - Name
Andrew Dick
Faculty Advisor 1 - Department
  • MECH

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