NL: When the Electricity Is in Your Feet; Watt dance floor
Posted: Sun 26th Oct 2008 05:47 am
NL: When the Electricity Is in Your Feet
The Watt dance floor.
DÜSSELDORF, Germany, Oct 24 (Tierramérica) - As everyone knows, the wind and the sun produce energy. But now there is also a way to generate electricity by dancing.
That has been happening for the past few weeks at the Watt dance club in Rotterdam, in western Netherlands.
The dancers move to the rhythm of the music on a dance floor made from panels that also move up and down -- no more than one centimetre -- depending on the movement and weight of the dancer.
The motion activates a system of specially designed dynamos, located under the floor, which transform the mechanical energy of the dancers' movements into electricity.
That electric power is used to illuminate the panels of the dance floor and a two-metre column that indicates the level of energy produced by the people dancing.
"Our objective was to create something that would really work, and would be perceived as such, and which would show the dynamic relationship between the body of the person dancing, the floor and the other dancers," Daan Roosegaarde, one of the floor designers, told Tierramérica.
One person dancing generates an estimated 10 watts. The floor at Watt has a capacity for 150 dancers.
"This is not just talking and talking about protecting the environment, but doing something about it," says one regular at Watt, a man with glasses and long hair who is dressed in green.
Around 70 percent of the people who regularly go to dance clubs expressed willingness to support initiatives to protect the environment, according to a survey by the Sustainable Dance Club company (SDC), which has participated in developing the product and is responsible for sales.
Every weekend, some 10,000 young people head to the dance clubs in Rotterdam, considered "the Dutch capital of discos."
The original idea for an electricity-generating dance floor came from a group of students, who were later joined by architects, designers, entrepreneurs and engineers from the universities of Delft and Eindhoven.
After two years of work and private investment of nearly 7.4 million dollars, along with some 402,000 dollars from the city of Rotterdam, the project made its debut in September.
The dance club with the electrical name was the first to install the floor, but the SDC says it has received requests from all around the world. "Probably our next destinations will be New York and Berlin. It's the technology of the future," company director Michel Smit enthused to Tierramérica.
A similar project -- but on a smaller scale -- was launched in a London dance club.
Source & rest of article
The Watt dance floor.
DÜSSELDORF, Germany, Oct 24 (Tierramérica) - As everyone knows, the wind and the sun produce energy. But now there is also a way to generate electricity by dancing.
That has been happening for the past few weeks at the Watt dance club in Rotterdam, in western Netherlands.
The dancers move to the rhythm of the music on a dance floor made from panels that also move up and down -- no more than one centimetre -- depending on the movement and weight of the dancer.
The motion activates a system of specially designed dynamos, located under the floor, which transform the mechanical energy of the dancers' movements into electricity.
That electric power is used to illuminate the panels of the dance floor and a two-metre column that indicates the level of energy produced by the people dancing.
"Our objective was to create something that would really work, and would be perceived as such, and which would show the dynamic relationship between the body of the person dancing, the floor and the other dancers," Daan Roosegaarde, one of the floor designers, told Tierramérica.
One person dancing generates an estimated 10 watts. The floor at Watt has a capacity for 150 dancers.
"This is not just talking and talking about protecting the environment, but doing something about it," says one regular at Watt, a man with glasses and long hair who is dressed in green.
Around 70 percent of the people who regularly go to dance clubs expressed willingness to support initiatives to protect the environment, according to a survey by the Sustainable Dance Club company (SDC), which has participated in developing the product and is responsible for sales.
Every weekend, some 10,000 young people head to the dance clubs in Rotterdam, considered "the Dutch capital of discos."
The original idea for an electricity-generating dance floor came from a group of students, who were later joined by architects, designers, entrepreneurs and engineers from the universities of Delft and Eindhoven.
After two years of work and private investment of nearly 7.4 million dollars, along with some 402,000 dollars from the city of Rotterdam, the project made its debut in September.
The dance club with the electrical name was the first to install the floor, but the SDC says it has received requests from all around the world. "Probably our next destinations will be New York and Berlin. It's the technology of the future," company director Michel Smit enthused to Tierramérica.
A similar project -- but on a smaller scale -- was launched in a London dance club.
Source & rest of article