By Yuka Yoneda
Don't be alarmed if next time you're at Coney Island, you see the girl on the towel next to you plug her iPod right into her bathing suit. She isn't suffering from sun-delirium – she's just taking advantage of Brooklyn-based designer Andrew Schneider's new PV-powered design, the Solar Bikini. Schneider, who honed his tech skills at the Interactive Telecommunicati ons Program at New York University, makes each sun-powered swimsuit by hand, and has just started accepting custom orders.
Schneider spends about 80 hours on each bikini, hand-stitching super-slim, flexible photovoltaic film strips together using conductive thread. The resulting suits come with a USB connector that you can plug your iPod, iPhone or almost any other mp3 player or cell phone into to juice them back up. And even though the PV cells terminate in a 5 volt regulator, all of the power is transferred right into your electronics, so you don’t have to worry about being electrocuted when you decide to take a dip.
Want to hit the beach in your own Brooklyn-made, sun-powered bikini? Schneider’s website, Solar Coterie, is now accepting custom orders so that you can be one of the first to show off this super high-tech swimsuit. But don’t blame us if people start coming up to you asking you to juice up their dead phones!
Article courtesy of inhabitat.com