16-year-old Kettner made it to the top five of the 2008 Design Squad Trash to Treasure Competition, sponsored by Intel. The contest challenged kids of all ages to take everyday discarded or recycled material and re-engineer it into functional products. Kettner used a scrapped electric scooter, some cloth hangers, gutter nails, a bucket and Gatorade bottles to come up his invention the “Rain Powered Waterwheel Generator.” As one of the five finalists, Kettner will receive a Dell Laptop powered by Intel.

Kettner explains: “I wanted to build a machine that would harness the potential energy of rain water in an everyday home. As an environmentalist, I value the earth. Many people know that it is ridden with the Co2 emissions, so to help reduce that, I devised a way to achieve renewable energy through hydropower. Water from my home’s gutter is diverted to a pipe that spews water directly onto a wheel of a generator, turning the chain linkage (from a scrapped electric scooter). Then this cranks the motor and generates electric power that gets stored in a rechargeable battery. The motor and the battery also came from that same scooter. It’s free electricity for the home anytime it rains!”