As seen on BBC1′s Human Power Station, Electric Pedals are renowned experts in the world of pedal-power.
We run workshops and 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 had a lovely time helping the London Wildlife Trust celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Camley Street Natural Park in Kings Cross last April. Created from an old coal yard back in 1984 this extraordinary and internationally acclaimed site has been delighting Londoners for a quarter of a century. All of the talks, live music and a pedal powered cinema (with Minima) were powered by the young and old!
Having met Minima at the Greenman last summer we were inspired to do an event with them on London’s Southbank, just next to the wheel! In case you’ve never heard of them, Minima are an amazing four piece who do audacious 21st-Century interpretation of the images of silent and avant-garde film.
Although it was a bitterly cold night, we managed to get an audience of passers-by to make enough power to show the amazing Harold Lloyd film – Safety Last. It was a great success and has inspired us to develop the idea of Minima vs. Electric Pedal further.
650 Staff, students and parents of Tupton Hall Secondary School along with local primary schools came together to not only celebrate the achievements of science, but to raise money for sport relief UNICEF and other charities. We worked with the Craig bell who is a member of Tupton Hall’s science faculty on coming up pedalled powered installations such as smoothie making, workshops, dance mats, Scalextric and of course the mini power station to power the main stage. All of this went towards a ten hour energy marathon which kept the bands playing all day raising over £2000 as well as generating just over a Kilo-watt hour between them! It was a very long day but really satisfying!
Ready for the summer we’ve finished our human-power blender that works by simply connecting a generator to a motor. We’ve tested the blender with Tim’s four year old daughter and it worked great! Its a great way to make a smoothie without needing a plug socket! If you want one, drop us an email.
a unit of energy, equivalent to the energy transferred or expended in one hour by one kilowatt of power; approximately 1.34horsepower-hours. Abbreviation: kWh, kwhr
-energy density
coal power plants obtain approximately 1 kW·h per half kilogram of burned coal
-human activities
equivalent to 1200 electric shaves, slice 100 loafs of bread, dry your hair 15 times, 4 nights watching telly, listen to same CD 15 times, use a small refrigerator for 24 hours, 20 microwave meals, drill 250 holes, 4 evenings of light with 60 W incandescent lamps or 20 evening of light with 11 W compact fluorescent light, 15 family meals for four, 36 cups of tea, a roundtrip of 3 miles or less in your car with your lights, heater, and wipers running, roughly the power you could get from one human servant per day
We finally finished the pedal-powered smoothie maker. We wanted to build a smoothie maker that was not mechanically attached to a bicycle like tradition smoothie makers; rather ours relies on a generator to motor principle which means that even kids as young as five can attach their own bike to the generator. There is an acrylic panel at the front so that kids can see what’s going on inside. We tested it today at Tim’s daughter’s birthday party and it went down a storm, smoothies just taste better when you ‘make’ them yourself!
We’re flying to Mumbai to help make a pedal-powered stage for an NDTV Greenathon in March. The 24 hour TV show will raise money to put solar-power in villages which have never seen light after dusk.
Pedalling at our sedate 50 watt rate, we would have to pedal for 240,000 hours each to generate the equivalent energy, that’s about 27 years and 4 months of constant pedalling.
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!
