Mr Arkwright: A Pedal Powered Drawing Machine

I have worked with light artist, maker and NESTA fellow Jo Fairfax, (of Jo Fairfax Studio) on a number of prototypes and ideas. This project required a human powered pump to power a drawing machine.

RE-Innovation built the pedal power generator and pump control system, which was mounted on a tandem bike.

Solution

The design brief was to add a high flow rate pump onto a pedal power system. I used a pump designed for solar powered water pumping. A MPPT controller was used to limit the flow to the available pedal power.

The final installation was amazing (my part was only the pump power system – many other people were involved with this), as shown in this video:

The system was installed at Cromford Mill, in Derbyshire, during the summer of 2019.

All photos are copyright Jo Fairfax 2019