SOCCKET (Energy-Producing Soccer Ball)

It sounds like a nice idea. The "SOCCKET" is an electricity generating soccer ball. So children in impoverished communities, whose parents can't afford electric light, can play soccer during the day to charge the device up, and then use it at night to power a small lamp to read by.

Plenty of money was raised to produce these things and ship them worldwide. Unfortunately it seems that the gadget wasn't field-tested very well, because reports are that most of them promptly stopped working after a few days. So a lot of kids now have an overpriced soccer ball. [pri.org]

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 13, 2014
Category: Inventions | Sports

Comments

For the price of one of the balls that don't work, you could buy three of the highest rated hand crank/solar flashlight/radio/phone chargers!
😡

Posted by Tyrusguy on 04/13/14 at 12:08 PM

That may be true, Tyrus, but those things don't roll worth a damn!

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 04/13/14 at 01:56 PM

I have one of those actually. It works quite well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0071BTJPI/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Posted by BrokeDad in Midwest US on 04/13/14 at 02:24 PM

Gimmicks and gadgets are very unlikely to give the kind of help people that impoverished need.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 04/13/14 at 06:50 PM

Good idea. Poor execution. At least it doesn't appear that it was government funded.

Posted by RobK on 04/14/14 at 11:21 AM

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