La Salle Vs. Penn: The Battle Of the Jackets
Image via Philadelphia Business Journal.
Only weeks after Joel Mathis reported on the Frackit, a “frat jacket” created by University of Pennsylvania juniors, La Salle students have thrown their own metaphorical hat into the ring with a jacket that can charge your smartphone. Let the battle of the jackets commence!
The Philadelphia Business Journal reports:
Jameel Kemp and Aliyah Stephens created a jacket with a cloth solar panel on the back that collects energy and transfers it to a battery pack in the inside pocket. The battery pack has a USB socket, in which wearers can plug in their smartphone cords to charge.
The project was developed for a senior project the pair worked on together; they competed with it in the championship round of Network for Teaching Entrepreneurships’ National Challenge in Silicon Valley. You can’t exactly go out and buy one yet, but we can see this idea gaining traction.
As someone who sees her iPhone battery zap with every new app purchase, this is exciting news in the realm of wearable technology. Plus, it’s a viable option for those that don’t want to guard their iPhones at the wall socket waiting for them to charge. That being said, they’re pretty fugly.
So, about that La Salle vs. Penn battle: It all boils down to what you need more: a jacket that can charge your iPhone or a jacket you can wear for a night of keg stands. Select accordingly.
