Celebrating Shire Green in Sheffield

In the summer we ran our YouWatt light bulb challenge at the Sanctuary Group's 'Let's Celebrate Shiregreen' event in Sheffield. Also attended by David Blunkett MP and snooker champion Steve Davis, so we were in good company.

The celebration marked the completion of a five-year regeneration programme managed by Shiregreen Community Homes to modernise 2,500 properties across the estate. The guys from Sanctuary Housing thought it would be a good idea to get people engaged with an activity that would help them appreciate energy and teach them a little about the electricity they use and maybe waste daily.

We tested out our new YouWatt score board that let's participants record their names alongside the peak number of watts they managed to generate. All the time learning about how much energy their household appliances require. People seem to love a bit of competition and getting their name up on the board, the only problem was we didn't have a prize. Next time we'll up the ante!

Our light box has four 25 watt bulbs on it. Each time we switch another bulb on the person pedaling feels the increase in resistance as they pedal and they have to work a little harder to meet the demand. With all the light bulbs switched on they need to generate 100 watts of power, the faster they pedal the brighter the bulbs light up. The kids tried hard to blow the bulbs up by pedaling really hard. Thankfully no one managed!