Kid Power!

I saw this on my local news the other night and it was too good to not pass along!
While on an LDS service mission to Africa Ben and Julie Markham watched the local tribal children playing on the village water pump. They thought about all the energy these children were exerting and how they do so in a non-stop manner. That gave birth to the idea BYU mechanical engineering students are working on now. Adding electrical generators to common playground equipment. The idea is that while the children play on merry go rounds and swings and teeter totters they can be generating electricity to power their schoolhouse.
This provoked one of those 'duh' moments in me where I thought to myself, "Why hasn't this been thought of before?" The engineering students are creating the systems so that the children can generate electricity under normal playing conditions and won't have to 'work harder' to create the power. The generated electricity is stored in common car batteries and is usable by the school to power lights and any other electrical system that may be present.