A young man used 770 pieces of moldy potatoes to play Doom 1993 on a handheld computer

Specifically, Equalo bought about 45kg of potatoes and boiled them to increase the electric current. Then he cut them into a total of 770 potato slices. He then meticulously stacked them in his garage, then used galvanized wire to connect them together to cause a reaction that produced a very small amount of electricity, about 100-120 milliamps and 5 volts.

A young man used 770 pieces of moldy potatoes to play Doom 1993 on a handheld computer Picture 1

Equalo's original intention was to run Doom on the Raspberry Pi Zero but it did not run even though it had enough power. Over the next few days, Equalo tried every way to fix it but was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the potato pieces started to get moldy and smelly.

Equalo decided to use a TI-84 computer instead of a Raspberry Pi to run Doom. He removed the battery from the TI-84 and connected it to his moldy potato battery bank. The results were surprising, after 6 days of hard work and enduring the unpleasant smell of potatoes, Equalo succeeded.

If you don't know, potatoes can be used to generate electricity. Basically the acid and salt in potatoes act like a chemical battery when we insert a piece of metal made of zinc or copper into the potato. When those potatoes are connected together, they will generate enough electricity to power a number of small devices.

Jessica Tanner

Update 12 July 2024