Trampling the crowd will give the country electricity

MIT students have found a new source of electricity - a crowd of stomping people. Indeed, such crowds are constantly present, for example, at railway stations, stadiums, markets and universities, so that with the appropriate re-equipment of the floors it is possible to turn the same station into a powerful electric generator.

Crowd Farm works with the help of a multitude of tectonic blocks that are mounted into the platform and move under the influence of the weight of the people passing through them. The blocks are abutting and electricity is generated due to the movement of the inner rods relative to each other (see the diagram under the habrakat).



One human step generates energy, which is enough to burn a 60-watt light bulb for a second. Of course, you don’t put such a system in an apartment, but at a busy railway station it’s just a huge power. So, for the movement of a powerful locomotive it takes only 28,527 steps per second.
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The student-developed system won first place at the Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction engineering competition this year.