Some time ago I wrote about this issue many of us unfortunately already faced once or regularly face when traveling by plane: the scarce number of electric plugs in airports.
As you might imagine, most airports were built long before we were all carrying around all kinds of electronic devices, and as such, finding a place to charge them up can turn today into a real challenge. I expect many of us have snooped around for the outlets the airport cleaners use or that operate vending machines (that’s bad!) so we can plug in and charge up our laptop or cellphone during a stopover. Some of us may eventually have ended-up charging their device in the bathroom. But that’s another story I guess…
So, unless airports management decide to undertake a costly reorganization of their infrastructure or implement a wireless power solution – which won’t be made available tomorrow to the many – , the problem may last some time.
The question is, “shall we cry on our cruel fate and accept that?”. I think we shall not!
Designer Ryan Klinger has identified this big flaw and has created the Empower Kinetic Rocking Chair which harnesses your body movements to provide power for your devices. A small box under the seat stores the generated power in a battery, which can then transfer into your devices using either a regular plug or USB. LED indicators on the box tell you how much of a charge the battery is holding.
So simple you wonder why nobody came up with this idea earlier.
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The Empower Kinetic Rocking Chair is a finalist in this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition. Let’s hope it will win and start blooming everywhere we need to plug.
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