Sleek Solar Powered Sun Lounger Design

Architecture students at MIT have designed and developed the Soft Rocker – a solar powered outdoor rocking lounger where you can relax and charge your electronics the green way. Led by professor Sheila Kennedy, the rocker uses the human power of balance to create an interactive solar tracking system that utilizes a 12 ampere hour battery storing the solar energy harvested during sunlight hours – this means your gadgets will continue to charge after sunset or on a cloudy day. For night time use, a strip of tape light runs along the interior of the lounger – perhaps not overly comfortable to sit on, but the Soft Rocker definitely looks cool as an outdoor sculpture after dark. A couple of Soft Rockers were installed on campus for student use for a short while – the response was positive – students enjoyed socializing while charging their ebooks, tablet devices, cell phones and any other USB-compatible gadgets between classes.