When brain power lights up and creative thinking flows, people find the
good ideas that solve perplexing problems.
© iStock

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In 2008, for an engineering project at Harvard, Jessica O. Matthews teamed up with Julia Silverman, to prototype a soccer ball that traps kinetic energy during play and then turns the energy into a light source.

They called it the SOCCKET because a light inserted into the ball uses the stored energy for power. Thirty minutes of play harnesses enough energy to power a LED light for three hours.

During soccer play, a pendulum-like mechanism inside the SOCCKET captures the kinetic energy and stores it in the ball for later use as an off-grid power source.
© Uncharted Play Team

In 2011, Matthews and Silverman co-founded Uncharted Play to produce the SOCCKET and thereby harness the power of play as a power source for people.

Their story is a fascinating one on how creative thinking, fortitude, and perspiration lead to successful products. And their work illustrates (at least) five stages of creative problem-solving.

1. Seeing the Need

Over 1.3 billion people worldwide lack access to electricity that is reliable, affordable, clean, and safe.

As a result, households use dangerous sources of power, such as kerosene lamps and diesel generators, which cause nearly 2 million deaths per year and harm the environment. According to Uncharted Play, “Living with fumes from one kerosene lamp is the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes every day.”

Jessica Matthews,
CEO of Uncharted Play
© Uncharted Play Team

Matthews explains how she came to understand the need:

Just a few months before the SOCCKET was first developed, I visited Nigeria for my uncle’s wedding. I remember very distinctively choking on the fumes of a diesel generator outside their house.

My cousins said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” Their complacency really bothered me.

2. Putting Two and Two Together

Though her relatives didn’t want to change the situation, Matthews noticed that they did want to play soccer:

Around my aunt’s compound, kids were kicking around whatever they could find. I even saw kids playing soccer with a bottle cap. Still, their skills were more impressive than those seen in a FIFA level game. 

As often happens in a creative “Oh, I see” moment, Matthews combined the two ideas and the inspiration for the SOCCKET came alive.

Often, it takes seeing the connection between TWO disparate ideas to come up with a creative solution.
© iStock

The solution she envisioned would use people’s passion for play to create the power for households, allowing kids to study and families to accomplish tasks after dark.

The SOCCKET can provide light to read at night in developing nations.
© Uncharted Play Team

3. Getting the Idea Off the Ground

After prototyping the SOCCKET for their engineering project, Matthews and Silverman (who were studying to be social scientists, not engineers) discovered the inevitable obstacles that come with pursuing an idea.

In an interview with Inc., Matthews discussed how she ran into an engineering community that insisted “there was no way to build a ball that would be light enough to kick and capable of generating substantial energy.”

That’s where the perspiration came in. She “taught herself the basics of soldering, building circuitry boards, and whatever else it would take to bring the idea to fruition.” The final SOCCKET weighs only one ounce more than a soccer ball.

Textbook Example: As happens with many ideas, it was harder to get
the SOCCKET off the ground than to think it up.
© iStock

Matthews also had to maintain a strong belief in the value of her idea. As she says of the SOCCKET:

I knew it would be a good product at the very least. I never once said that it could be huge; I only said that it was meaningful. I was very persistent in my belief the SOCCKET would matter to people in a way that made it worth continuing its development. So I pursued it.

And she gives due credit to her naiveté in business, citing it as an advantage in not worrying about what could stop her.

4. Going for Quality

On the journey from the creative idea to the quality solution, Matthew’s company recognized the importance of testing, listening, debriefing, redesigning, and retesting.

Companies with a commitment to quality always kick around a new product before its release.
The SOCCKET took plenty of kicks in field trials this fall in Nigeria.
© Uncharted Play Team

So far, over 10,000 SOCCKETS have been tested in Central and South America, Africa, and in a few communities in the USA.

New ideas emerged, so the SOCCKET that goes on sale in the next few months will also come in a Portable Power Kit—one SOCCKET and ten portable lamps that remain lit for an hour after a 25-second charge from the SOCCKET.

Testing a product leads to improvements. Uncharted Play identified the need to charge multiple lights from one SOCCKET and to make the lights portable.
© Uncharted Play Team

According to Uncharted Play, “That way, children living in off-grid communities can play with a single SOCCKET ball as a team at school and still have their own personal light for reading . . . each night.”

5. Keep Asking “What’s Next?”

Consistent with its mission to inspire people around the world to lead playful lives and to foster well-being from that play, Matthew’s company keeps the creative thinking going.

• For the developing world, it has prototyped other energy-generating play “tools,” like jump ropes that hold four times as much power as the SOCCKET.

• For the developed world, it has created a smart soccer ball called Ludo, due out in 2014. A motion sensor detects time used in play. The number of minutes are converted into Play Points that individuals can “spend” to direct donations from sponsors to social development projects.

It looks like the power of play will keep such creative problem-solving going for years to come!

Jessica O. Matthews and Julia Silverman were honored by the Harvard Foundation in 2012 as “Scientists of the Year.”  To keep up with the latest at Unchartered Play, check their Facebook page.

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