Comments on: GREENER GADGETS WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

By: supersoyboy

supersoyboy — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:02:02 +0000

a wind up lamp would have been just as practical and not as large

By: debcoveyou

debcoveyou — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:00:21 +0000

Hi I have always saved junk and made it into other things, but I know it has not always been the greenist way , but I,m getting much better. Is there a place that a person can buy these items? Such as the laptop.

Thank you

Deb in Alaska

By: Bambus-Handy: Grüner gehst nicht

Bambus-Handy: Grüner gehst nicht — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:50:09 +0000

[...] Hülle ist aus Bambus und die Energie entstammt der Drehung desselben um die eigene Achse quasi. Grüner gehts nicht. Vielleicht noch mit Ausnahme des Tantals für den Prozessor.Auf jeden Fall ist allein schon die [...]

By: Part Phone, Part Plant « A Geek in anything but pink

Part Phone, Part Plant « A Geek in anything but pink — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:32:52 +0000

[...] The Bamboo phone was one of the finalists at the 2008 Greener Gadgets Design Competition. [...]

By: zach @ pennywise

zach @ pennywise — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:16:24 +0000

I am not so sure that the lamp is such an “out there” idea. I think that 4 hours of power may be a bit much to ask for, but how often do we use a light for 4 whole hours. I think that with today’s decreased power demands on light bulbs, that we should be able to get something similar to this to work using a system of springs like a clock to conserve energy fed into the system by gravity. The gear reduction would probably be huge!

definite problems to overcome, but perhaps one of the coolest entries with the most potential for change.

zach @ pennywise-poundfoolish.typepad.com

By: Inhabitat » ENERJAR: Make your own energy meter with the DIY Enerjar Kit!

Inhabitat » ENERJAR: Make your own energy meter with the DIY Enerjar Kit! — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:13:57 +0000

[...] turning energy monitoring into an engaging DIY project the Enerjar took first prize in our recent Greener Gadgets Competition. Designed by Matt Meshulam and Zach Dwiel, this little downloadable DIY kit uses common household [...]

By: ' + title + ' - ' + basename(imgurl) + '(' + w + 'x' + h +')

' + title + ' - ' + basename(imgurl) + '(' + w + 'x' + h +') — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:30:51 +0000

[...] and I’ll explain it to you here in simple terms. This mobile phone, a finalist at the 2008 Greener Gadgets Design Competition, is made out of bamboo. Yes, you heard me right….Keep [...]

By: Zero Energy and Green Building in New Homes | WIND-UP ECO BAMBOO PHONE: Charged by whirling!

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:15:16 +0000

[...] phone, by Dutch designer Gert-Jan van Breugel was one of the finalists shortlisted at this year’s 2008 Greener Gadgets Design Competition (and Jill’s personal favorite). Although this design didn’t end up winning one of the [...]

By: Inhabitat » WIND-UP ECO BAMBOO PHONE: Charged by whirling!

Inhabitat » WIND-UP ECO BAMBOO PHONE: Charged by whirling! — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:54:52 +0000

By: Natasha Gorodnitski

Natasha Gorodnitski — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:36:20 +0000

the bicycle one wasn’t more popular? seriously? i think that that would have won.

By: Jeff Haynes

Jeff Haynes — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:36:54 +0000

I too was excited about the lamp until I bothered to do the calculations. Now I’m pretty upset that this guy won. I think if we don’t take this seriously it detracts from the overall effort to produce green technology. By my calculations you would need something around an eight metric ton weight to make this work. With ideas like this you’re not going to be taken seriously.

By: Dethe Elza

Dethe Elza — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:51:09 +0000

I can explain the 11-year-old’s entry, being her dad and all. It tried to be many things, but I think the core idea was to monitor the environment for toxins and then map the results out on a built-in GPS. It also was designed to incorporate algae as part of the display, and circulate air through them to purify a small amount of air as it is used. And it was supposed to generate its own electricity by shaking it or pulling a cord. But the environmental mapping was the key.

By: Moschops

Moschops — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:29:27 +0000

I hate to be a naysaer but… someone should point out that the Gravia floor lamp would not work. The amount of energy stored by raising a mass is very little and even if there was a 100% efficient generator it would probably only power an LED lamp for a couple of minutes. If you want the math: potential energy of a mass in Joules = m*g*h where m= mass in kg, g = acceleration due to gravity (9.8 m/s^2) and h = height raised in meters. So even if you hauled a massive 100 kg weight (over 200 pounds!) to 2 meters you’d get only 2000 Joules of energy as it descends (and it would take that much to raise it). At super efficient white LED gives around 100 Lumens per Watt of electrical input (depending on color), so to get 600-800 lumens would require at least 5 Watts and 5Watts is 5 Joules per second so 2000 Joules gives you 2000/5 or 400 seconds worth of light – less than 7 minutes. And that assumes a 100 efficient generator whereas you’d probably be looking at more like 50% efficiency so you’d be down to about a couple of minues and all this is with a super heavy weight that would probably require a big winch to raise.

I would propose they investigate a system that instead uses a compressed gas or a spring – but then the mechanics of the thing would require a very strong shell. Alternatively they could try winding up a huge rubber band and spinning the weight – I haven’t done the math on whether that would work though.

And PS – I know these are just ideas and I love the ideas in principle.

By: George Kontos

George Kontos — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:14:35 +0000

Please make all these wonderful and all the entries sites and info available! I would love to offer these ideas to our clients of OnlyGreen.com!

By: Daryl Smith

Daryl Smith — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:44:09 +0000

You don’t have a link to the downloadable DIY kit for the energy monitor.
And maybe we can recycle those chargers instead of throwing them away.