A few people have messaged me about Skippy the Hamster
(cute little fella ain't he?) and how the Otherpower.com staff thought up an idea of putting to use all of the energy that Skippy was wasting on running on his exercise wheel. So they decided to put their minds to
harnessing this latent energy source to power a night light!
"The Otherpower.com staff thought of building a hamster-powered nightlight a couple years ago at a rather, uh, soused company Christmas party. Then recently Analise, an 8th grader from Albuquerque, NM, contacted DanF through the AllExperts.com Science For Kids forum, asking 'Can a rodent generate enough electricity to power a light by running on it's wheel?' That was enough inspiration for us to start the project, and we soon added Skippy the Hamster to the Otherpower.com payroll. He's a Syrian Hamster, and we chose that breed since they are nocturnal and like to run on the exercise wheel. Analise will be using a mouse named Ghost for her science fair project. "