Can you harness energy from a hamster wheel?

You need a Hamster Powered Generator. Just like the jokes you’d tell about your first beater car, the HPG is a hamster wheel that turns a dynamo and charges a battery when your little friend feels like some exercise. It won’t power your house, but it’s handy for charging a small battery for a night light.

Could a hamster in a wheel power a night light?

Though Skippy the Hamster powers this night light by running on his excercise wheel, the same concepts and low-rpm alternator design could be applied to a school science project using different energy sources! A small wind or hydro turbine could easily power this alternator.

How much electricity can a hamster wheel generate?

A hamster in a running wheel equipped with a generator can generate up to 500 mW electric power, enough for illuminating small LED lamps.

How many hamster wheels would it take to power a house?

But barring that, we’ll go with the currently existing real world variety. Thus, it would take in the ballpark of 486,000 hamsters running on wheels connected to generators to produce enough electricity for an average American home for a year.

How many watts can a hamster generate?

How many horsepower does a hamster have?

One hamster weighs about 5 ounces. One horse weighs about 1,500 pounds. If their power output is proportional to weight, the hamster is about 1/4,500 of a horsepower. A thousand of them are about 1/4 horsepower.

How many hamsters can power a house?

Thus, a hamster with infinite stamina and no need to sleep could produce about 15,770,000 joules or 15.77 Megajoules per year. This means it would take approximately 2,465 such hamsters to provide the needed electricity to power a typical American home for a year.

Why do hamsters run on wheels?

Hamsters eat a variety of foods such as sunflower seeds that are high in energy content. These foods make them hyperactive and they take to running on the wheel to burn off excess energy. If the exercise wheel is the only “equipment” in the cage, it is likely that your hamster will suffer from wheel addiction.

How much horsepower can a hamster have?

We start with assumptions: one hamster power (hp) is probably about one thousandth of a horse power (HP), and the efficiency of a drive wheel/generator/motor is probably around 64\%. To get a 64 HP car would therefore need around 100,000 hamsters rushing round inside their little wheels.

How does Skippy the hamster power his night light?

Though Skippy the Hamster powers this night light by running on his excercise wheel, the same concepts and low-rpm alternator design could be applied to a school science project using different energy sources! A small wind or hydro turbine could easily power this alternator.

What would power a hamster-powered alternator?

A small wind or hydro turbine could easily power this alternator. The Otherpower.com staff thought of building a hamster-powered nightlight a couple years ago at a rather, uh, soused company Christmas party.

How do you attach a magnet to a hamster wheel?

To make things simple, we simply centered the magnet disc on the back of the plastic hamster wheel, and held it in place with 4 more strong magnets stuck to the inside of the wheel! This makes it easy to remove, but still holds it tightly on there. You could also use glue if needed.

How many RPM can a rodent make?

She found that most rodents can make between 40 and 60 rpm on the exercise wheel. That gave us a starting point for the alternator design. Our first thought was to use a DC hobby motor to generate the electricity, so we could charge up some NiCad batteries to run a light.