What Do You Think

Why not incorporate piezoelectric film in the soles of each shoe and the act of walking would generate power without all the gizmos and linkage.

I was just reading about it this morning. Sounds cool.

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/05/13/electricity-from-viruses/

What if the viri run amok and wildly reproduce so much that they begin to electrocute their host bodies?

Anybody thought about that?

They make it into a movie.

I'd say, first make a prototype to see how much interest it generates. In my experience, an idea is just an idea before it becomes tangible.

What applications do you have in mind for this device? May this be marketed for the physically impaired?

Maybe even more pertinent for now is what are the features of this device? Can the wearer go up a flight of stairs? What about elevations: can you break on downward slopes? Is it easier to go uphill? Can you go off-road?

Evolution has designed a system of locomotion for humans that is quite convenient.Your device attempts to improve this just like Dean Kamen's segway, which would be a competitor btw.

Eeeeh... I would expect it to be lossy. You have extra weight to move around for starters. It can't be more efficient than walking... unless you're a Dalek. (no offence intended, if so! And by all means, include the piezo for little lights!)

It seems to me that the most efficient solution to the implied benefit (...anyone can wear it, and start walking to roller forward..), would be to vary the design of roller skates with wheels that turn in only one direction. (Normally, skaters use the 'toe brake' to create the friction to go forward.

This idea has already been patented, but maybe not tried well in the marketplace. Google these terms: <roller skates "one way" wheels "rotate only">. I didn't see any examples of these on the market; perhaps a different mix of search terms might reveal public acceptance...

Keep thinking... dreaming up new ideas is fun and (sometimes) rewarding.

Thinking more about this, I see that rolling is in quite a different category than walking and not necessarily more efficient in relation to control. Walking uses friction to propel forward, and it is easy to change direction and speed as opposed to rolling which has less friction and more difficult to control..

Ideally, if there was a way to control the speed and braking like in a bicycle, it could be possible.. It seems that I may be described a modification to a unicyle..

Just a couple of years too late!

Market it as a kids toy...the latest craze (with the kids round here anyway) are "skateboards" and 3-wheeled scooters which use the shimmy effect to generate forward motion: I think of it like the movement a fish makes to propel itself through water, only in air we have to translate it through wheels and friction.

It looks quite funny, these kids on wishbone shapes scooters, swinging their hips from side to side...

You Mean these things. They are made for adults too. And give quite a workout.

Now that looks more fun that the kids here get up to!!

Perhaps I'm missing something, but is there any way that the device you are describing could be any more efficient than a bicycle?

Very old idea and this has been incorporated already many many years back. Go to a kids shoe store and look for Joggers with rollers on the heels. You will find them for kids aged 3~6 years old.

This is what I came up with in 1974. It was injection molded and due to the oil crisis back then never went into production. I have lost the photos of the prototype and the "Goggy" itself but it was an interesting ride.

They were one way roller balls. Took a bit of getting used to with the metal prototype, which was much heavier than the planned plastic version. We had fun.

Enjoy, Ky.

Heelys.

How's about folks eat less? The energy that goes into growing, processing, packaging, transporting, refrigerating, et cetera, et cetera, the food we eat in excess of what we need (including that which we throw away and its disposal costs in energy terms) would power about a third to half of the U.S. East Coast.