Kids in central Japan craft 21 miniature hydropower generators for contest

MISHIMA, Shizuoka — Elementary and junior high school students in this central Japan city recently created 21 miniature hydroelectric power generators for a contest.

The event was held at Shirataki Park in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Aug. 11. As the waterwheels spun in a crystal clear stream in the park, LEDs on each of the power generators flashed.

The purpose was to let children know about Mishima’s streams, create summer vacation memories and promote understanding of hydropower generation without fossil fuels. Judging was based on five points: ideas and technology, design and artistry, environment and ecology, ability to generate electricity, and lastly, evidence of effort. This contest was the ninth, with a hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 21 entries included many ingenious works, such as one named “Adding coolness to the city of water,” in which the statuette of a kingfisher drinks water when a “shishiodoshi” tube device is filled with water and moves, and another named “A summer night in Mishima,” in which a tiny Mount Fuji is placed and LEDs embedded in firefly models flash.

Using plastic bottles, Kyo Shiramoto, a second-year student at municipal Minami Junior High School, worked in a team of three including his younger brother to create a Kodama shinkansen bullet train and a “Doctor Yellow” rail track inspection bullet train that both glow. “We worked on it together more than 10 times since the end of July. It was difficult to make the blades of the waterwheel,” he said.

(Japanese original and video by Hiroshi Ishikawa, Numazu Local Bureau)