Can We Make a Face Mask Generate Electricity?

We bring to life kids' invention ideas on our youtube channel and 10 year old Felix sent us his idea for a face mask that generates electricity. We weren't sure if we could make it work but we thought we would give it a go!

If you know of any 4-11 year olds who might like their invention brought to life then check out our website to find out how. 

Happy Inventing,

Ruth & Shawn

Are you a teacher or a parent? See our attached Invention worksheet to use at home or in the classroom.

On Felix's invention drawing he has a turbine that spins as you breathe in and out so we needed to make a mini wind turbine that was activated when you breathe on it and we thought a computer fan was a good place to start. Usually what happens is you put electricity into it and it spins and it cools down your components however if you use it backwards, by blowing on it, when it spins it can generate some electricity. We just weren't sure how much or if we could fit it into a mask?!

We tried a fabric mask but the air kept escaping out of the sides...

We decided that we needed a mask with a tighter fit on the face so we decide to use these plastic masks and attached the fans over the vents. We covered up any other places the air might escape with Sugru and then decided to think about how we might store any energy we created.

On Felix's drawing he had a battery to store the energy that the face masks produced, but we didn't think that the face masks will produce enough to be able to charge a battery, so we decided to use a capacitor. Capacitors allow you to store up a little bit of energy and release it quickly when you need it.

Even with frantic breathing our face masks only produced 1.6V (so no phone charging here!) but it was enough to be able to set off a buzzer if someone can too close, so we wired in a button that activated a little buzzer on our masks.

Check out the video above for our little demo on how mask actually protect us. We used some custard, so it got a bit messy. (skip to 7:43 to see this!)

So we charged up the masks by running on a treadmill and watching a scary film and then went to the supermarket (on one of the hottest days of the year) to test out Felix's mask invention. They worked pretty well, allowing us to not spread Covid, generate electricity and 'buzz' anyone that got in our way!

We would love to hear from you if you have a go at making your own electricity generating masks and how well they worked.

Don't forget to check out our other projects on instructables and subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE

Happy Inventing,

Ruth & Shawn