If Mir Behrad Khamesee has his way, the snowblower you're hauling out yet again this winter could do more than just clear a path to your front door. The mechanical engineering researcher foresees a day when a small gizmo attached to that snowblower could capture vibrational energy from the motor and convert it into useful electricity.

Khamesee and his graduate student Pratik Patel recently developed a micro-energy harvesting system. The device is elegantly simple. At either end are…