By Nilay Kar Onum
ISTANBUL
Losing power in your mobile phone can be a minor social calamity.
If your phone battery dies while you are hiking or hunting in a remote location, it can become a matter of life or death.
Now one resourceful Turkish schoolboy has invented a walking boot which generates power with each step – a potentially life-saving product.
The multi-purpose boot was developed by 15-year-old Furkan Faruk Aslan in Turkey’s southern province of Mersin.
Furkan – a young man of few words – developed this project for a technology class at Akdeniz Secondary School. His aim, at first, was simply to get a high mark.
“I thought of how I could produce electricity for places where there is no power. For example, during trekking or hunting,” Furkan tells Anadolu Agency. “Then I started working on a shoe, something which is an inseparable part of us.”
His interest and ability in mechanical technology led him to develop the useful device, leaving other students behind.
His prototype is a heavy, black high-top hiking boot with a small metal attachment woven into the side. It is from this power point that phones can be plugged in and charged.
This talented student, who also developed a simple motor-driven fly-repellent, completed his ‘Step-by-Step Energy’ project in two months.
The eye-catching device then drew many people’s attention when he attended a competition at Mersin University at the start of May.
His boot turns motion into electricity through a magnetic friction system with each step taken.
The electricity is stored in a battery on the boot. There is also a solar panel that stores power to support another 9-volt battery in sunny weather.
“In order to produce enough power to charge your phone, you need to walk around 200 meters. For the solar energy, you need to wait 3 hours, 20 minutes,” he says.
His project follows a January breakthrough by German researchers who produced shoe-sized walking devices that generate power.
U.S. mechanical engineering students at Rice University in Texas also developed a similar energy-generating shoe in 2013.
However, there is no such technology in use right now in Turkey.
Furkan’s aim is to appeal to everybody with this project.
"It could be used in military field. Hunters, trekkers, farmers, actually everybody who needs a kind of thing, can use it," he says. “I believe this shoe will make life easier.”
Along with his technology design teacher Nazan Ayar, Furkan has applied for a patent to develop his prototype.
The young visionary, who dreams of being a mechanical engineer, is happy to interest his family and the people around him but wants to work on new projects.
“My next plan is to develop a generator, which does not use any sort of fuel,” he says.
