By Mike Rigsby, for The Children’s Book Review
Published: October 5, 2010
Years ago, Bishop Milton Wright brought a rubber band-powered helicopter to his sons, Orville and Wilbur, who were then 7 and 11 years old. The Wright brothers later claimed that their interest in flight began with this gift.
Another child, age 5, was sick in bed. His father brought him a magnetic compass. The boy could not get the compass to point in any direction but north. There was “something behind things, something deeply hidden,” he observed. The boy was Albert Einstein.
Doable Renewables: 16 Alternative Energy Projects for Young Scientists (Chicago Review Press) is dedicated to “the unknown kid who is going to change the world.” The projects in this book will help any budding scientist construct and explore working models that generate renewable, alternative energy.
Large scale production of renewable energy will raise the living standard for billions of people (think clean water, mechanized food production, schools with electricity). Renewable energy will stop the advance of global warming (decrease burning of the world’s limited fossil fuels). Production of this energy will provide a worldwide economic boom (think millions of people producing things that improve the world).
Who has the energy and vision to tackle such an enormous task? Who believes in a world of infinite possibilities? Kids. Doable Renewables is a collection of projects intended to spark imagination and encourage the thought that, “Hey, there is free energy all around us, just waiting for the taking.”
Mike Rigsby is a professional electrical engineer and the author of Amazing Rubber Band Cars and Haywired. He has written for Byte, Circuit Cellar, Modern Electronics, Popular Science, Robotics Age and other magazines. He lives in Sanibel, Florida. Visit his website at www.misterengineer.com.
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