An invention that uses body heat to power lights created by a team from Taichung’s Mingdao High School on Thursday last week won the Overall Champion award at the IDEX competition in Singapore.
More than 40 teams of high-school students from around the world attended IDEX, hosted by Singapore’s Anglo-Chinese School (Independent).
Four teams from Taiwan attended: two each from Mingdao and National Tainan Second Senior High School, Mingdao International Department academic coordinator David Lao (勞永全) said yesterday.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
The other Mingdao team also made the finals, winning bronze, he said.
The Overall Champion award winner, designed by Tsao Tai-jan (曹泰然), Tian Shao-yuan (田紹遠) and Chao Chien-cheng (趙建程), was created to provide lighting for children in less-developed countries.
Using a thermoelectric power generating module, the students created a system that uses natural body heat to generate electricity, Lao said.
By using 18 to 30 of the chips, connected to a capacitor and a transformer, electricity can be produced at different wattages to power lights.
The invention received unanimous approval from a panel of judges.
The students said that they came up with the idea after visiting Cambodia, where they discovered that children had to work in the day and lacked power at home to study at night.
The system is able to produce power simply by having someone sit on it, but is only able to run for 12 to 15 minutes, Lao said.
“We hope to overcome this obstacle and develop a stable system capable of providing power for longer periods of time,” Lao added.
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