Hamster-powered cell phone charger

Images-23 More hamster projects- A 16-year-old boy who invented a hamster-powered phone charger is celebrating after the gadget helped him pass his GSCE electronics. Peter Ash, from Lawford in Somerset, came up with the idea after his sister Sarah complained that Elvis was keeping her awake at night by playing for hours on his exercise wheel. The quick-thinking teenager quickly realised that the restless hamster's energy could be used to generate electricity and spent the next 13 months inventing the 15cm device for his GSCE electronics coursework project. [via] Link. If you know this fellow, have him contact us!

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Posted by: agarratt on August 26, 2005 at 4:55 AM

Picture of the Peter can be found at the
Ananova News Site


Posted by: gg2 on August 31, 2005 at 5:07 AM

If it'll charge a cellphone, it'll also power a small transistor radio, charge an iPod, power a small LED night light, etc. I think this would be a viable commercial product as well as an interesting DIY thing.

Someone should set Peter up with a website and a PayPal account. There are probably people out there who would send him donations because it's a cool idea and he deserves to get some kind of reward for his efforts (his teacher, apparently suffering from an imagination shortage, gave him a C). I'd send him $50 and some encouragement to commercialize the device.

OK, it doesn't solve the world's pending energy shortage; but it's a clever idea, it performs a real function, and it will get people thinking. If you have a pet rodent, it's a source of free ambient energy that can replace an inefficient wall-wart transformer. And there's no animal cruelty issue since they only run on their wheels when they feel like it, which is plenty enough to be a reliable power source.


Posted by: hollie bradley on January 29, 2008 at 1:21 PM

hello i know peter !!!


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