Are you lost in the wilderness near running water and some useful garbage and desperately need to make a phone call? Well not right now you’re not, but plan for your future and learn how to MacGyver yourself a hydroelectric charging device before it’s too late! In the video above, real world MacGyver Thomas Kim teaches you everything you need to know.

Give it a watch and see how Kim pieces together a makeshift wheel generator that will charge your out-of-juice phone, or even power that small LED light you happen to have with you. With a plastic wheel, a wooden dowel, a waterfall, a plastic bottle, and some wires extending from an electronic device inside that bottle, Kim patches together a piecemeal generator that’s able to power his phone. Later he uses the setup to turn on some lights glued to the underbelly of a CD. It’s pretty ingenious, and the video is just the latest in a series of ersatz creation vids that Kim has manufactured.

To be fair, as Gizmodo points out, Kim didn’t construct his device because he needed it, but he’s a survivor and, like I said earlier, it’s prudent to plan ahead. Who knows what you’ll have with you when you get lost next to that waterfall! From now on, forget about back-up batteries and just bring this Kim-approved kit of miscellany on all of your hikes. And, if you’re actually able to make this thing work, may it be a light to you in dark places.

Has anyone ever MacGyvered a charging device, out of pleasure or necessity? Let us know in the comments.

Image: Thomas Kim/YouTube