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Viewer Challenge: Bicycle Generator

Former Member

Ben,

 

I work for the world's oldest environmental organization (the Sierra Club) here in South Carolina.  We have a booth at the State Fair in October, and I would love to be able to show folks that they can get their exercise while they play games and/or watch the television--and be environmentally friendly at the same time. 

 

How about developing a bicycle powered generator that would be capable of supplying enough electricity for a television (and possible a gaming console as well)?  South Carolina is the eighth most obese state in the nation so a little exercise during our leisure time wouldn't be a bad thing.  We could sure use some of that Heck-magic.

 

Yours,

 

Kurt 

  • Hi Kurt- This sounds similar to an idea Jeri Ellsworth had- Have you seen her page on element14 or more specifically her video on this type of build?  I know I can always use a good excuse to exercice! (The video name is Energy Harvesting- Is it for Fools)

  • The only issue I see with a build like this, is that many of our day-day electronics don't like having their voltage supply "brown-out" or cut out completely without a safe shutdown sequence.  A safer alternative might be to use that power to charge a battery or just dump the energy but measure it and then allow the TV/Video game to run for a certain length of time based on the work done, similar to Ben's token controlled 360.  Another cool idea would be to use your bicycle or treadmill to correspond to in-game events, such as running speed.

  • Yes Jeri did a video like this, right? She used a bike to play Nintendo, right?

     

    Also powering any remotely modern game system would be pretty hard to do with a bike generator.

     

    Maybe a better approach would be maintaining a certain speed would enable a game console to be played... if you slow down the screen dims perhaps? More of a carrot and stick approach?