Playground power to light classes

Playground power could be used to light up classrooms in Africa thanks to the creation of a young British inventor.

Daniel Sheridan has designed a see-saw which can generate enough electricity to light a classroom for several hours.

It works by sending the power that's generated by kids playing on it during the day to an electricity storage unit where it can be kept until it's needed.

Experts are so impressed, they've given him £5,500 to develop his designs into a working model.

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The 23-year-old got the idea while volunteering at a school on the island of Wasimi, south of Mombasa, in Kenya last summer.

Daniel Sheridan is a design student

He said: "The number of children we saw there that loved to play, and their energy and their vibrancy, I thought it would be great if I could somehow make use of this."

When he got back to the UK, Daniel did some research and came up with his design for the see-saw.

Oil lamps

It's thought playing on the see-saw for just five to 10 minutes could generate enough electricity to light a classroom for an evening.

Lots of schools in Africa open in the evening for older pupils, but normally have to rely on candles and oil lamps so they can see what they're doing.

Daniel said: "Ultimately I would love to design a whole playground of different pieces of equipment that could enough generate electricity to power a whole village."