Inventors Devise New Way To Maintain a Comfortable Body Temperature
Most people’s first instinct when they feel too warm or too cool in their home is to head for the thermostat on their central heating or air conditioning system. Inventors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), however, have produced a new device which could help people maintain a comfortable body temperature without having to leave their seat. The idea of a personal cooling device would probably sound like science fiction to most people. The MIT team, though, have managed to produce a wristband device which can cool or warm someone according to their own personal preference. The new device also impressed judges in the MITs Making and Designing Materials Engineering Competition (MADMEC), where the device was considered worth a $10,000 prize. Known as Wristify, the appliance could soon be heading onto the mass market. Before that point, though, there is still much work to be done. The four MIT alumni and students who designed the device were largely motivated by what they saw as the mounting financial and social costs of energy consumption in the United States. A great deal of the energy used today, perhaps as much as 16.5 percent of the USA’s total energy usage, is devoted