We offer another story in the soccer/football and renewable energy category. And here we go grassroots, instead of global in focus.

While playing soccer typically consumes the energy of participants, leaving them exhausted and drained, four Harvard students have just introduced a new technology flipping the soccer/energy paradigm on its head.  SoCcket, is a soccer ball that generates and stores electricity during normal game play. Seriously. After the ball is used, the stored electricity in the ball can then be used to light an LED lamp, charge a cell phone or battery

The four students, Jessica Lin, Jessica Matthews, Julia Silverman, Hemali Thakkar came up with the idea of a energy-harvesting soccer ball as a class assignment.

There is high demand for new energy technologies in developing countries. These countries are often overly reliant on kerosene lamps, a source of energy that can have lasting negative health effects.  The World Bank estimates breathing kerosene fumes indoors has the equivalent effect of smoking two packs a day.

The SoCcket project is currently in the development phase working on the soccer ball prototype.  While the students understand that they probably won’t be able to power the entire the developing world with a soccer ball, they are optimistic that this inventive energy supplement will offer an efficient (and fun) energy solution.

Check out SoCcket here.

You can also read a full write-up from The New York Times here.