SPARK: Generating Electricity Through Music

I remember when I was young seeing an artist’s impression of how electricity might be generated in the future – that future era being round about now. It involved pavements which took the power of footfall and produced energy from it. It hasn’t come to pass on a global scale but here is a new idea which I think could really take on.

Sudha, a British percussionist, has invented SPARK – a percussion shaker that converts the energy from playing it in to electricity. Although it is not going to light up the streets it does enable people to, say, charge up a mobile phone or run a light bulb for a few hours, so facilitating study in the hours of darkness.

That may not sound like much but in countries like Kenya, where three quarters of the population still live without electricity it could be a life changer. To learn more about this excellent project, please visit the kickstarter page. If this sounds like a great idea to you, then there is even an opportunity to become fully involved with it and visit Kenya to help out for a week.