Shoot 4 The Moon,: energy

If you spend most of your day working on your laptop and don't have time to walk, play aerobics or join the gym next door, I'm glad to tell you a group of MIT students have solved this problem for you! :)

MIT students have come up with a way to recharge your laptop without plugging it in. Rather than consuming electricity, you'll be burning calories--your own.

The students designed and built an exercise bicycle that uses "pedaling power" to charge a laptop computer. As the bike's instructions note, if you have trouble "squeezing in that daily exercise," you can now "multitask with no problem--[you can] bike while you work!"

The pedal-powered laptop began as a class assignment for Course 1.102, Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Design (spring 2007), when students were instructed to design and build a device that converts mechanical power into electrical power.

Enjoy reading more about this interesting invention here.

Yesterday, I was lucky to drive the SolarTaxi; a solar-powered car that travels around the world to promote the use of clean energy and fight against human actions that cause global warming.

Louis –the car driver and the tour director- expressed that the story has begun when he was a 15-year-old boy; his dream was simply to drive a car powered by solar energy and hence it consumes ZERO drops of patrol. But sadly, after 15 years his dream did not come true since it is not affordable now to buy such a car. That was not the end; he took the challenge and worked hard communicating with Swiss universities, research centers, private sector companies so that his dream would come true and accumulated the effort to build the first prototype for his dream car.

I look at this initiative as a wonderful evidence of cooperation between academia and industry in Switzerland, and I think Jordanian universities have to shake the hands of the private sector and work on similar R&D projects that would raise the quality of our education and contribute in the growth of vital local industrial sectors.

Oil will not continue to be the most affordable type of energy in the upcoming 10-20 years! If Arabs is not ready for such a day when other alternatives of energy would be more feasible for both human and industrial applications, they will be the biggest losers ever!!

On the other hand, This initiative rings the bell to take serious actions about the everlasting problem of global warming, and think of effective solutions that we can put into action today to rescue our planet and prevent further abuse of natural resources.

The interesting thing is that the car is equipped with GPS so that you can track it online, through its official website.

I invite you also to read the press release published at Alghad newspaper about the demonstration of the SolarTaxi at the Royal Scientific Society.

last but not least, make sure to watch this short video that I did take for the SolarTaxi...