Hamster Powered Cellphone Charger

16-year-old boy invented a hamster-powered mobile phone charger as part of his GCSE science project.

Peter Ash, of Lawford, Somerset, attached a generator to his hamster's exercise wheel and connected it to his phone charger.

"Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about thirty minutes talk time on my phone."

I love it. When I write my Sci-Fi novel, I was planning on having NYC run on electricity created by rats in the sewer running on treadmills. But hamsters, that works too.

I wondered if it made economic sense for animal created power. If I remember correctly, it doesn't. It would be better off just taking the animal's food and burning it directly to create the power. But, if you have an animal already might as well put it to good use.

Speaking of, how come I can't use a treadmill to power my laptop? I had blogged earlier about the treadmill/laptop hookup for work. If you generated your own electricity for the computer that would be sooo much cooler.

The teenage inventor was given a C for his project and has been awarded a D overall for the course.

Dude, that is so wrong. How did he only get a C for this? Seems pretty cool to me and better than my Science Fair projects.

Via Engadget via Ananova