【轻松英文阅读】15岁少年的发明

 You may not need to worry　about batteries someday soon. A 15-year old girl, Ann Makosinski from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada has invented a flashlight that uses the heat from your hand for power.

 

Instead of using batteries the flashlight uses Peltier tiles². Peltier tiles produce electricity when one side of the tile¹ is heated and the other is cooled. In her first attempts she was able to produce enough power, but not enough voltage³. But eventually she was able to find a solution and produce a working flashlight.

 

Makosinki was able to build the flashlight for under 30 dollars. And considering you will never need to buy batteries, it’s a great deal.

 

She is currently⁴ one of 15 finalists in the Google Science Fair. The grand prize is $50,000 dollars and a trip to the Galapagos Islands. The final round will be held in Mountain View, California this September.

1 tile   

n.砖瓦；vt.铺以瓦，铺以瓷砖

参考例句：

• The bathroom is faced with tile.浴室铺着瓷砖。
• I pointed to a number of scratches in the tile floor.我指向地板砖上的一道道划痕。

2 tiles   

n.瓦片，瓷砖( tile的名词复数 )；扁平的小棋子

参考例句：

• The wind dislodged one or two tiles from the roof. 大风从屋顶上刮下了一两片瓦来。
• On both slopes of the roof there are broken tiles. 屋顶的两面斜面都有破瓦片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 voltage   

n.电压

参考例句：

• That is how voltage is measured.那就是如何测量电压的方法。
• The electric current varies directly with the voltage.电流与电压成正比。

4 currently   

adv.通常地，普遍地，当前

参考例句：

• Currently it is not possible to reconcile this conflicting evidence.当前还未有可能去解释这一矛盾的例证。
• Our contracts are currently under review.我们的合同正在复查。