A 15 year old designed a flashlight for a science fair that can be powered with heat from your hand.
Ann Makosinski, from Victoria, Canada beat thousands of contestants at the Google Science Fair with her design for a body-heat powered flashlight, CBC News reported.
Makosinski won a $50,000 scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos Islands.
The teenager is an old pro at science fairs, and has been entering them since the sixth grade (she's now a 10th grader).
Makosinski said she has always had a keen interest for alternative energy. "I'm really interested in harvesting surplus energy, energy that surrounds but we never really use," she said.
The idea began years ago, when she discovered Peltier tiles, which produce electricity when heated on one side. She even experimented with the tiles for her seventh grade science fair submission.
From those tiles, the teenager got the idea of using body heat as thermal energy, which could allow people to power devices with a readily available source.
She started the project by seeing if the heat from a human hand would be enough to power an LED flashlight, and it was.
Determined to bring her experiment to life, Makosinski bought the thermal-powered tiles on Ebay. While the power from human body heat was more than enough to power the flashlight, the tiles themselves weren't strong enough.
The young scientist was discouraged, but she didn't let it stop her. "You just kind of have to keep going," she said.
Her next step was to try out different circuits, in hopes of building her own transformer. The final product still didn't hold enough voltage to power the flashlight.
"This took quite awhile 'cause I had to do it during the school year as well and I had homework, plays, whatever that I was also doing," said Makosinski.
Eventually she found an online article suggesting an affordable high-powered circuit, and the project finally came together.
She made two different types of the flashlight using slightly varied Peltier tiles. One model used an aluminum tube from a lab to send cooler air to one side of the tile; the other flashlight contained a PVC tube from Home Depot.
Makosinski found the flashlights had a stronger glow at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit than at 50 because of the difference between the air temperature and body heat. At both temperatures the flashlight was able to maintain light for at least 20 minutes.
The entire flashlight cost $26, but Makosinski thinks it could be produced and sold for less if distributed commercially.
The science fair winner is happy with the accomplishment and excited for her upcoming vacation. "I just can't believe that I actually made it this far," she said.
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