Young Girl of 15 years invents device that converts the movement of the sea into energy

With only $ 12 of investment , Hannah Herbst bought the necessary materials to develop a device that generates renewable energy with the movement of ocean currents . The girl, who lives in Florida, won the  2015 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge  and won $ 25,000 as a prize.

To build this type of technology, Hannah uses a 3D printed propeller, some PVC pipes, a pulley and a hydroelectric generator. Her prototype produces enough energy to power an LED lamp , but she believes that if she could invest in the construction of a larger prototype, she could charge three batteries in one hour. The interest for the oceanic energy has been increased in the last years with projects of quite spread, the last one that we have known is in Australia

With this energy, it would be possible to supply enough energy for a desalination pump and filter the seawater, to convert seawater into drinking water.

The value of the prize is already destined: go straight to your savings to pay for college after high school. You have to admit: the girl has talent! If the future of the world depends on it, the lack of drinking water and investment in renewable energy will not be a problem for society. We are getting to know the stories of young people who, with their enthusiasm and ability, want to help develop technologies that respect the environment, such as  Boyan Slat, founder and CEO of " The Ocean Cleanup ",  an organization that will deploy the first system to safely remove plastic waste from the oceans  or  Cynthia Sin Nga Lam, which has developed the H2Pro, a device that purifies wastewater and at the same time produces hydrogen that allows generating electricity using only sunlight.

Hannah started her project while writing to a 9-year-old boy living in Ethiopia, he discovered that his family lived without a reliable source of electricity and drinking water. So Herbst invested his efforts in trying to solve the problem that had the family of that child.

In the following video, Hannah explains in her own words how her contraption works.

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