Have you ever heard of "a ball of energy"? People often use it to describe very active children. But today we tell about an invention called the soccket, that is a real soccer ball of energy. Julia Silverman explains that in fact the soccket is a portable generator (便携式发电机).
Julin Silverman and Jessica Matthews developed the soccket as part of a group project for an engineering class at Harvard University.
There are mechanisms (装置) in a soccket. When you kick, hit or throw it, energy is then kept in it by these mechanisms instead of disappearing into the environment.
Then the user can put something directly into the ball, like a lamp, or a mobile phone charger (充电器) so that they can get energy from it.
For every fifteen minutes of the game play, the soccket can provide enough electricity(电) for an LED lamp for three hours, and the ball can store(储藏) up to 24 hours' electricity.
The International Energy Association reported last year that nearly one and a half billion people in the world had no electricity to use, and most of them live in Africa, India and other countries in Asia.
Julia Silverman and Jessica Matthews both had experiences in developing countries before they began the project. They knew that power shortages are a serious problem in really areas.
There's an energycrisisin the world. One out of every five people in the world don't have any electricity. And besides that, there are a lot of health problems because what people use instead of the electricity are harmful choices like kerosene(煤油) lamps, which produce a lot of smoke.
Julia Silverman says the soccket ball is one small solution to a big problem.
Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman hope their soccket ball will shine more light on the problem of power shortages. It offers people a chance to put their energy into the world's most popular sport and get some energy in return.
