Green Electric Salsa Jar Wins $2500 1st Place

KVELL (yiddish): To beam with pride and pleasure. Parents are prone to kvell over their children's achievements.

That's what I have been doing lately.

Like most parents, I pretty much have a kvell-circuit running at all times for my great kids Yael and Matt. They are really cool, unique people.

But this event has not only amped up the kvell-machine, but is giving me a real kick and a good laugh besides.

You see, Matt, a junior at Washington University studying electrical engineering, and his friend Zach Dwiel (also from Wash U) entered a contest sponsored by Core77 Industrial Design and Greener Gadgets.

The mission: "To design a "greener gadget"; to create innovative solutions addressing the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development."

That high-sounding verbiage did not deter Matt and Zach from applying not only their considerable technical expertise and concern for the environment, but also their unremitting senses of humor to the challenge.

Their creation captured the imaginations of judges and attendeees alike, assembled in New York in February 2008 as a part of the Greener Gadgets Conference. In the words of the Core 77 site:

The design competition engaged established design firms, emerging designers, design students and design enthusiasts, and top entries were showcased live at the Greener Gadgets Conference by a distinguished panel and the audience. (There were 2 rounds of rigorous pre-judging prior to the live event.) Panelists were Valerie Casey (founder of The Designers Accord and Global Practice Head, Software Experiences at IDEO), Ryan Block (editor-in-chief of Engadget), and Jill Fehrenbacher (publisher of Inhabitat and coordinator of GreenerGadgets).

The First Place Winner: EnerJar by Matt Meshulam and Zach Dwiel



This ungainly contraption is a do-it-yourself power meter. It measures the power consumption of any appliance you can plug into a wall. Here we see it measuring the power draw of a laptop:



The judges are to be complimented for seeing the radiant beauty in that funny-looking beast. Other entries were clever and many were wonderfully rendered. But Matt and Zach's invention was real. It actually worked.

And here's the beauty: The EnerJar is made of recycled material! The jar once held salsa for a brief time before its destined trip to the landfill. The power supply came is an old cell phone charger. Have you ever seen cell phone parts reused? Imagine how many used cell phones there are out there, clogging Earth's arteries.

But in addition to this incredibly practical aspect, the EnerJar teaches you about how you are using energy in a real, tactile way. First you build it in an Earth-friendly way, then you use it to learn about yourself and your impact on our world.

To bring the philosophy full circle, Matt and Zach have created a website www.EnerJar.net where they post a schematic drawing for free. Here is what it looks like:



Please visit www.EnerJar.net and take a look around. There is a parts list, a nice explanation of the hardware and software involved, and a place to comment. You might have an idea of similar brilliance that you can post there for the involvement of similarly enlightened people. This can be the spark of a new movement. This is a worthwhile visit. These are great ideas. But then again, I am kvelling.

Greener Gadgets Design Competition Video

Greener Gadgets Design Competition Results