Scream if you wanna charge faster!
The new Walking Dead roller coaster at Thorpe Park in Surrey will do more than scare the shit out of you. Weirdly, as well as the zombies that will leap out at you, the ride will also charge your smartphone, and the louder you scream, the more charge your phone will receive.
To get some free fear-power, riders deposit their phones in a special on-site charging unit before getting on the new ride. Charge is then delivered to the phones based on the amount of energy generated by previous ride-goers, harvested by five special units built into the train carriage. The more sound, the more power.
Yes, it's a bit of a gimmick, and we received the news tied into a press release about young people's greatest fear being running out of phone battery. Still, it is an interesting use of kinetic energy, and Dr Joe Briscoe, School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University of London, said: “Using vibrations and movement from The Walking Dead: The Ride has allowed us to harness the stray energy that is all around us. This is an exciting concept that will undoubtedly be used more frequently in the future. The system uses a mini energy harvester to capture the kinetic energy, transferring it to a separate electrical circuit and storage unit, which is enough to charge a mobile phone.”
Walking Dead: The Ride will open at Thorpe Park this Easter weekend. Find out more at www.thorpepark.com