Just when I think all the craziest, most creative ideas have been thought of, Kickstarter slaps me in the face and makes me remember that there is always someone out there with a brilliant invention who just needs some money to get it off the ground.

The invention you are looking at above takes the take as one of the coolest I’ve seen in a while.

It’s called the onE Puck by Epiphany and essentially it’s a coaster on steroids. Using a stirling engine powered solely by heat disparities, this little coaster is able to take the hot or cold energy being given off by your mug and turn it into enough power to charge your smartphone or iPod. Brilliant, eh? Considering the amount of drinks we all consume in a day, rather than bringing cumbersome wires around, one can just bring the onE Puck and a USB chord when going out and charge their device anywhere at anytime. The best part is that using it is as simple as putting your hot drink on the red side (as seen above), and cold drink on the blue side (as seen below).

Since launching their Kickstarter campaign earlier this month, Epiphany labs has amassed $98, 137, which is just shy of their $100,000 goal. Once they hit the magic number, they claim that production can continue with an estimated delivery date of March 2014.

If you like what you’re seeing, you can become a backer via the onE Puck Kickstarter page here starting at $115 US.

See below fore more images of the onE Puck in action.

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