EnergyBugs: energy harvesting wearables for children

EnergyBugs are energy harvesting wearables with features that invite children to move their bodies to generate tiny, yet usable amounts of electricity. EnergyBugs not only convert children's kinetic energy into usable electrical energy, but also let children power a specially designed LED lamp with the energy the children have personally harvested. EnergyBugs therefore turn the electrical energy into a tangible object that children can manipulate and think with. Two studies of EnergyBugs with 34 elementary school children have revealed that children carefully observed and negotiated the use of personally harvested energy with their classmates, as well as developed emotional connections to energy. In particular, moving their own bodies to generate energy led the children to more actively ask questions about energy from new perspectives. We report our iterative design process and discuss the implications of our results for HCI.