Weekly Update: Project Clean Up Newsletter - Vol. 1, Issue 70

Date: October 23, 2026

The Kinetic City: Piezoelectric Nanogenerators and the Power of the Step

Welcome back to the Project Clean Up (PCU) weekly newsletter! Over the past month in our Smart & Responsive Materials series, we have completely redesigned the passive components of modern architecture. We engineered soft, synthetic muscles (LCEs), memory-forged metals (Nitinol), and dynamic, sun-blocking skin (Electrochromic Glass).

Today, we look at the ground we walk on.

A city is a chaotic storm of kinetic energy. Millions of people walk on sidewalks, subway trains rattle through underground tunnels, and heavy trucks pound the asphalt. For the last century, all of that mechanical energy—all that friction and vibration—has simply been absorbed by the concrete and lost as waste heat.

What if we could capture the impact of a footstep and turn it into light? This week, we explore Piezoelectric Nanogenerators (PENGs)—the advanced materials that harvest the ambient motion of the city, turning physical friction into an invisible power grid.