Sunday, September 26, 2010
Soccket: Revolutionizing the Game
Soccer is the world's sport. The game's more than 3.5 million fanatics resides in most all of the world's countries. Across the globe kids gather around a single ball and enjoy hours of daily activity and community with there fellow players. Additionally, for many children living in underdeveloped nations, soccer temporarily frees them from their day to day rituals, tasks, and issues. When the game is over though, sadly 95% of kids in African countries go home to houses with no lights, no fridge, and no electricity (World Bank Millennium Goals Report, 2006).
The Soccket is an innovation with the potential to help change this. The Soccket is a soccer ball that uses an inductive coil mechanism to generate energy which can then be used to power a lamp and even charge a cell phone. Though still in the prototype stages of development, Soccket carries remarkable potential and could immensely change the lives of families across the world.
By harnessing kinetic energy, after only 15 minutes of game play, the Soccket can charge a LED lamp for three hours. With this high amount of energy capture and capability, the effects would be tremendous. Some children alone spend hours juggling a ball. After play, they could go home and use the electricity they generated to study or make a phone call that otherwise would have been impossible. The Soccket will not only improve home environments in these third world countries, but can also open up education options to children by expanding their time for studying. With the right advertisement and distribution, the Soccket can drastically improve the lives of children, expand their futures, and change the faces of nations around the globe.
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This is really cool! It will be interesting to see if these people are able to market their product, and make it cheap enough for people in third world countries to purchase them. That is already one of the reasons they do not have electricity: cost. I think it is a good idea, but ultimately the limited time of use for that electricity will probably be a problem. Do you think it would discourage people from using it if they knew that it could only hold enough electricity to power a lamp for, say, an hour?
ReplyDeleteI think this product is targeted for the younger generations of third world countries and as a result, in answer to bri.taylor's question, I do not think they would be discouraged from playing with the ball as it seems to be able to charge quite rapidly and being able to play soccer or just bounce the ball would be enough of a motivation. Furthermore, I agree that the cost is going to be perhaps the main issue. I don't forsee many third world kids being able to purchase or spare the money on this more advanced ball. Rather, I think the only effective way the people of third world countries will have this ball is if generous and goodhearted people from else where in better economics situations invest or purchase a quantity and ship it.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I think this is a brilliant idea and product. It is so cool that they were able to combine the world's main sport and a mechanism to generate what powers much of our civilization all in to one.
I think a good idea would be for FIFA or any national soccer organization to promote and maybe even utilize the soccket. Although the ball is probably a bit heavier with the equipment and may be a bit different to the physical properties of a regular soccer ball, it would surely help generate a lot of talk about the soccket and maybe even get some people to send them as charity.