Bad news for all you gadget-addicted Williamsburgers out there: artist Mouna Andraos’s solar- and arm-powered recharger contraption is heading to — say it ain’t so! — Manhattan.
Fresh from her success in fueling up moribund cell phones, iPods and laptops all over Williamsburg at the Conflux Festival last week, Andraos is taking her mobile generator on the road.
“I’ve been thinking about taking it out in different neighborhoods and more rush-hour type situations,” said Andraos.
On her next outing, Andraos says she might roll her cart nto the most-rushed neighborhood of them all: Wall Street.
The good news for all you gadgetheads is that Andraos is working to make it easy for copycats to build their own versions of her clean energy power plant.
“I’ll publish the directions on how I built it,” said Andraos, whose cart can energize several phones and computers at once, and takes about as long to fully revive them as does any electrical outlet.
To build her machine, she studied battery-less flashlights for technical insights, but she was more influenced by the history of conducting business on the street.
“The idea for the cart came from inspiration from more traditional street vendor activities,” like knife-sharpeners and shoe-shiners, said Andraos, 28. “I started looking into alternative power sources for small devices.”
But unlike her peddler predecessors, though, Andraos gave away her service — like the rays of the sun itself — for free.
