Google’s Global Science Fair has been narrowed down to 15 finalists and Vancouver’s Ann Makosinski, aged 15, has made the cut. Her project is called the “Hallow Flashlight” and is a genius piece of work. Incredibly simple and purely driven by human energy.
Makosinski says that her flashlight “runs solely on the heat of the human hand,” no moving parts and uses “four Peltier tiles and the temperature difference between the palm of the hand and ambient air.” The actual flashlight design is ergonomic, thermodynamically efficient, and only needs a 5 degree temperature difference to work and produces up to 5.4 mW at 5ft candles of brightness.
The winner of the Google Science Fair 2013 will be selected on September 23rd and will receive a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, a $50,000 Google scholarship, a hands-on experience at either LEGO, CERN or GOOGLE, plus a bunch of other cool awards. Check out the flashlight in action below.