We recently built two smoothie bike systems with large light-up advertising signs. These use our electrical pedal generators to charge some capacitors. This electrical energy is then used to power some standard electric smoothie machines. There is a large LED sign which lights up as you ‘fill’ the unit with energy and the, when the energy is used up, the lights switch off.
[Read more…]Cheltenham Science Festival – Spirax Sarco
Spirax Sarco produce energy efficient boilers and steam systems for industry. They run outreach activities for younger folk at the Cheltenham Science Festival, which is a large six day event. They have used our pedal power equipment for a couple of previous activities at this festival. This year they wanted to highlight the energy required to produce steam and link it to the various areas of industry that they work in.
Through discussion with their team, we developed some pedal powered light systems that changed colour from blue to red to indicate getting hot. Two additional displays showed steam ‘clouds’ which moved up to the top and each player raced their cloud to the top of their light display by pedalling. The event ran smoothly with several hundred participants over the six days.
Please drop us an email if you have a bespoke pedal power demonstration idea!
Tour De Yorkshire Pedal Power
We worked with promotions company Creative Race to provide pedal powered activities for MugShots, one of the sponsors of the Tour De Yorkshire cycle race.
DIY ‘No-welding’ pedal-powered generator plans
Here are full constructional plans for a do-it-yourself pedal generator, including the bicycle stand. This is designed so that there is no welding involved. I have built two of these stands and they have proven to be quite reliable and robust.
A pdf leaflet of these plans is available here.
An instructable of this is available here.
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