Re: Pedal power..

by polgara on 13th January 2012, 2:54 pm

Why not ask for suggestions from the kids, they usually have some good ideas.

by Dandelion on 13th January 2012, 5:23 pm

The thing which occurred to me (and I haven't a clue how you would do it, but you've asked for the 'what' not the 'how'....) is a zoetrope, so the children could watch some simple animation which was powered by the bike. I'm not mechanically minded, but I think you might need some sort of differential to do this.

by mark barker on 16th January 2012, 4:38 pm

Thanks folks! I'm looking into generating some electricity from the bike, but realistically this is going to be limited by the fitness of the rider, so I'll have to couple together a few bikes to get anything near enough to power some impressive devices.

The Zoetrope idea is a nice simple one, and I'll have a working prototype by the end of the week! Wink

by Chilli-head on 16th January 2012, 4:54 pm

mark barker wrote:Thanks folks! I'm looking into generating some electricity from the bike, but realistically this is going to be limited by the fitness of the rider, so I'll have to couple together a few bikes to get anything near enough to power some impressive devices.

If you haven't seen it, this is what they did in the Bang goes the theory special, The Human Powerstation. They had a family live in a house, without knowing that their electricity supply came from a team of up to 80 people on bikes. Great illustration of what energy means in terms of human effort !