Shawn Frayne

In 2004 Shawn Frayne travelled to Haiti and noticed that the small fishing village of Petite Anse was not connected to an electrical grid. This left residents dependent on diesel and kerosene for lighting, at a cost of US $5-$10 per month, a huge sum for most families. Frayne was inspired to find an inexpensive and reliable alternative that would enable residents to harvest energy on their own. After a series of unsatisfying experiments with solar cells and microturbines, he remembered a film he had seen in a physics class about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which famously collapsed in 1940 due to powerful vibrations caused by the wind.