MIT Soft Rocker Chair Charges Gadgets with Solar Power

With the warm weather coming in the Northern Hemisphere, more people will want to go outside. And if you’re like us, you’ll want to use your gadgets as yu lounge around. Unfortunately, the batteries only last so long. One MIT project has come up with a cool way to get around that.

The Soft Rocker, designed and built by professor Shelia Kennedy, is a beautiful wooden rocker lounger that lets you relax in the shade outdoors. The chair features solar panels that lead into some outlets where you can plug in gadgets like your e-reader or your laptop, and surf or read to your heart’s content outdoors.

MIT Soft Rocker

MIT Soft Rocker

MIT Soft Rocker

MIT Soft Rocker

They were installed at MIT’s Killian Court. At night, they light up for a brilliant display in the evening.

MIT Soft Rocker

It’s always amazing to see these cool projects come out of MIT that combine both engineering brilliance with strong esthetic qualities. MIT is a lot like Disneyland for smart people.

This cool post comes to us from Designboom.

If you want to see more of the playful side of MIT students, check out a list of some of their greatest pranks. You might also like this Tesla coil hat built by an MIT student.