1.5 billion people around the world live without consistent access to electricity. They rely on kerosene lamps, diesel generators and wood burning stoves for light and warmth. According to Uncharted Play, a for-profit social enterprise dedicated to improving lives through play, these energy sources cause close to two million deaths per year and the fumes from a kerosene lamp alone are as poisonous as smoking two cigarette packs a day.
So what to do when such a large percentage of the world’s population lives in these difficult conditions? Give them soccer balls.
A unique soccer ball called the Soccket is an energy harnessing soccer ball that turns thirty minutes of play in to three hours of lamp light. Originally funded on Kickstarter, the Soccket is Uncharted Play’s flagship product.
For people in soccer-loving third world countries who endure the aforementioned energy difficulties, the Soccket can be a revolutionary addition to their way of life. It weighs only one ounce more than a standard soccer ball and as made evident by the video below its playability is so close to that of a normal ball that players won’t feel the difference.
The technology that captures the energy in the Soccket is ingenious in its simplicity. All that is required to create light is something already being done in many third world countries: kicking a soccer ball around. Soccket’s VP of Business Development, Melissa Seligmann explains that “the Soccket harnesses the kinetic energy generated from play, similar to the way a self winding watch works. Inside the SOCCKET is a pendulum-like mechanism that swings when the ball is in motion, storing the kinetic energy from play that is stored in battery as electrical energy.” Once the energy is captured a simple LED lamp can be charged by being plugged directly in to the Soccket.
The Soccket comes in a portable power kit which has one Soccket ball and ten portable lamps. The extra lamps allow for teams or groups of students to play with one Soccket and work together to generate light for each other.
The innovative concept behind the Soccket came from its two founders, Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman, who invented it for an engineering project during their junior year at Harvard. In May 2011 they created Uncharted Play to further advance their idea.
Soccer is a crucial part of life for many impoverished countries. So harnessing the energy that comes from playing the game is a natural, yet brilliant, next step to helping people who live without electricity. The way Soccket generates energy fits seamlessly in to the cultures of off-grid towns, thus making it more likely to become a mainstay in many communities around the world.
Seligmann explains the potential impact it could have for those 1.5 billion people who live without power: “The Soccket has the ability to provide clean, safe, and fun energy to the many people across world living without it. Because soccer is already an integral part of communities around the world, the SOCCKET is able to give to light to people at night without forcing them to change their everyday life. There are 1.5 billion people living with unreliable access to electricity around the world, but even here in NY we experienced firsthand what it’s like to live without power after Hurricane Sandy, which caused 8,511,251 electricity outages.”
In addition to the Soccket, Uncharted Play is looking to use the energy generating capabilities of Soccket for other products. “We’ve recently developed a new lamp that has a super capacitor in it,” Seligmann says. “This allows the lamp to be used independently from the ball. It acts as a handheld flashlight by storing some of the power from the Soccket. This allows one ball to provide light to more than one person. We are constantly prototyping new accessories for the Soccket like speakers and a cellphone charger.”
Currently, Uncharted Play is looking to transfer the concept of Soccket’s energy harnessing capabilities to other sports and activities. “A jump rope and an American football are in the works and are expected to begin small batch pilot testing this Fall.”
As the world continues to search for clean renewable energy sources to feed its growing population, it will be exciting to see where the potential of the Soccket and other products from Uncharted Play fit in to the future of our increasingly energy-thirsty world.