WaveRoller, a childhood dream realized

I used to read Popular Mechanics magazine back in elementary school and would read about all the cool inventions (Robotic Surgeons! DIY Jet-powered Go Kart!) and it got me in trouble more than a few times because what I learned there was not part of the 3rd grade curriculum.

I still remember a test where we were supposed to list future sources of energy. Instead of solar I put “waves” instead and got dinged on my score. I remember protesting, assuming my teacher surely had read the cover piece in that month’s Popular Mechanics. Back then I assumed, for some weird reason all teachers read and knew everything. No dice, the red mark stayed.

Today I read that what I read about back then is actually reality with a Finnish company that has announced a contract to build a working prototype off the coast of Portugal.

Quicktime Video (17MB)

This news was announced at Mindtrek, a conference I attended in Tampere, Finland. Startups are thick on the ground in Finland and I’ll write more on this later and the conference in another post.