As seen on BBC1’s Human Power Station, Electric Pedals are renowned experts in the world of pedal-power.
We run events in any location without a mains supply and without the drone of a generator constantly running; only the gentle whirr of bicycle wheels and the satisfaction of human exertion!
Pedal-power connects strangers together in an electrifying way; everyone working side by side to provide power for amazing events.
Electric Pedals is powered mostly by tea and biscuits.
We were invited to the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford for one of many meetings with the Children’s International Arts Organisation who has taken on an ambitious task of building an Ark which will be designed with involvement from many of the local schools. To quote the source – “CIAO! Ark is an innovative and ambitious arts and science project that will culminate in a large scale public art installation in central Oxford in June 2010. If you were sailing away on an Ark to create a low carbon future, what would you take with you and what would you leave behind?”. Electricpedals have been asked to consult on the energy requirements for the Ark which is due to set sail in June 2010!
Electric Pedals worked with four a-levels students at Hurtwood House deep in the Surrey countryside to make a music video as a part of their A-Level media course. Having seen one of our installations at the Big Chill this year, the girls hit on the brilliant idea of having pedal-lanterns as a part of the climax for the performance. The lanterns we designed specially by the girls before the event and looked great. Finally we got a copy of the finished edit!
Following the show we’ve had a number of questions asking how to make electricity from pedal energy. To help this along we’ve annotated the image of one of our mini substations to give you an idea of how to make your own usable electricity from pedal-energy. Click on the picture or here to see. The principles of this substation are identical to those used for the Human Power Station except of course it was scaled up massively to support huge number of bicycle-generators. Hope this helps.
Update: I’ve added some notes on Flickr regarding safety when using inverters. Click on the image to take a look.
We installed a single bike LED Christmas Tree at Tullo Marshall Warren. Pedalled by the staff, the installation was used as a fund raiser for a local cancer charity.
We shot some mobile phone footage of the day, its a bit grainy but fun none-the-less!
Single bicycle-generator and substation powering a huge sound system!
I went along to The Wave this weekend to demand action on climate change. It was also a good opportunity to checkout what the ‘cactus caravan’ were doing with just one bicycle-generator and sub-station. I must say I was impressed, they had one person producing easily enough energy to power the some decent speakers and a mixer, which entertained the masses with classic protest anthems such as Gold Lion by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer. Well done guys!
With Tim still cold turkey after giving up tea we had to find a healthy alternative. To make it worse, our workshop has no power which is a bit frustrating sometimes, especially when tea is needed. So we decided to make a pedal-powered smoothie machine, ingredient: One bike-generator, one scooter motor, a piece of steel reinforced hose, two jubilee clips, some speaker wire and an old blender. Basically all we did in join the generator to the scooter motor to get a really efficient and flexible smoothie maker.
The band in full effect with the girls generating power for the lanterns
Electric Pedals worked with four a-levels students at Hurtwood House deep in the Surrey countryside to make a music video as a part of their A-Level media course. Having seen one of our installations at the Big Chill this year, the girls hit on the brilliant idea of having pedal-lanterns as a part of the climax for the performance. The lanterns we designed specially by the girls before the event and looked great.
Tim Siddall having fun with a long exposure shot!
The entire event was also filmed by a friend of ours Claudia Lee and will be entered in a film makers competition called ‘It’s good to know … a film competition’ which is a quest to find surprising stories about good in the world. We look forward to seeing the final music video made by the girls and Claudia’s submission.
We’ve just completed a custom built bicycle-substation for a local group who want to harness their energy from pedalling by converting 12v DC to a more useful 230v AC. With this they can run their own pedal-powered concert or cinema anywhere as this system is completely off-grid; in fact they’ll be able to power whatever their creative minds can imagine! The bicycle-substation brings a whole new dimension to events, encouraging people to be more than just an onlooker, but to interact and becoming part of the event. Five people pedalling can easily deliver a constant 200watts of clean AC power with peaks of up to 400watts. This is easily enough to get people up and dancing and celebrating free clean energy. The bicycle-substation can also be used for educational purposes. The simple layout allows onlookers a brief introduction to micro generation and renewable. Essentially, a person pedaling and generating power is not much different to a small wind turbine.
As a part of Oxjam Kilburn we setup a very small 2 bicycle generator pedal power cinema in Oxfam on Kilburn High Street. We showed a number of short films from Straight8 (3 minute film on a single cartridge of super 8 cine film without editing or post-production) which was amazing. It was also a chance to test our new BenQ LED projector that performed great! Click the image opposite for a few mobile phone quality pictures from the event.
The show we worked on for the BBC Bang Goes The Theory, the ‘Human Power Station’ is featured in this months Focus magazine. The article asks ‘Could I generate enough pedal-power to run my own home?’. It’s a great question that took months of our time in research, design and testing to work out! Eventually, we figured that the average home would require about and average of 4KwH each day with peak power at around 12Kw i.e. if someone put the kettle on while someone else was in the shower! So we built 80 bicycle generators to handle the peak load! It was an amazing experience for us and we hope you enjoy it too. Anyway, look out for the show on the 6th December on BBC1.
Nunhead Arts Week Green Day is one of our favourite events of the year. It’s especially close to our hearts as it’s a community event in the heart of the community we live in. What also makes this event special is that everything, including the food is free and local community didn’t disappoint making this year the biggest to date. Every year we’ve built a pedal powered stage for this event and this year we really went for it! We had eight bicycle generators producing more than enough power for an amazing lineup of local artists including Lewis Floyd Henry and The Saudis. Massive thanks everyone who helped orgainise the event and special thanks to Dominic Rees-Roberts for filming and Lorna Allan for some wicked photos!
