Student's flashlight works by body heat, not batteries
(Phys.org) —Ann Makosinski from Victoria, British Columbia, has an LED flashlight powered by body heat. This inventor has a flashlight that glows when she holds it. The story gets more interesting, though. She is 15 years old and her flashlight has got her into the finalist ranks for the Google Science Fair. Her work is a result of a general interest in alternative energy. She said that she is "really interested in harvesting surplus energy, energy that surrounds but we never really use." Enter the Hollow Flashlight, which works according to the thermoelectric effect—creating electric voltage out of temperature difference. As a Grade 10 student at St. Michaels University School in Victoria, she was deciding on a topic for a science project when she discovered the Peltier tile, producing electricity when one side of the tile is heated while the other side is cooled.