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Pedal a Watt
Mary White, James Cline
The Watt Energy Pedaler
Salvaged exercise bike from Urban Ore, salvaged DC generator from a treadmill found on the street, recycled bottles and slumped broken window glass, DC halogen lights, steel stand found on the street in San Francisco, prisms from WWII tank windows, salvaged DC headlight, salvaged DC water pump, salvaged LED lights
We addressed the following question: How do we become power generators, without using more embodied energy to make new apparatus? How do we bring more awareness of the amount of energy needed for simple household appliances.
Clean and available energy will become more and more important to our world as more people require more power.
Traditional forms of electrical power: coal and nuclear power plants, create environmental pollution. "Clean" producers of power: solar, wind, wave, hydro and pedal powered energy, don't emit toxic waste, are usually quiet and provide electricity with less poisoning of the air, the water or the soil. We need to encourage more sources of clean power in the future and new ways to use our current clean technologies.
We need to learn to appreciate how much power is used in our daily life for lights and appliances. If we experience the human energy required to power the simple appliances around us, perhaps then we can learn to conserve and more wisely use the energy we have.
Our Watt Energy Pedal bicycle helps the user stay aerobically fit while creating power that may be used to power lights and/or other small appliances. The Energy Pedaler may also be used to charge a battery so that the power may be used at a later time
The average rider will produce between 125 and 200 watts an hour using the bike. While this may not seem like much power, many pieces of equipment draw very little power and can be powered for long spans of time with small amounts of power.
Lights, laptops, and radios all draw small amounts of current at 12 volts DC. In addition, LED lighting and high efficiency fluorescent lighting now allow 200 watts to go a long way. A typical 25 watt fluorescent light bulb, which replaces a 100 watt incandescent bulb, will last 8 hours on 200 watts worth of power. LEDs (light emitting diodes) are even more efficient and will last days on 200 watts worth of power.
Here is the Power Consumption of Typical Appliances:
Small TV 100 watts
Large TV 200 watts
Laptop PC 10 watts
Desktop PC 75 watts
Stereo 20 watts
Charging a cellphone 5 watts
Hi Effic. Desk lamp 15 watts
An Explanation of Watts vs. Watt-Hours
Watts is an instantaneous measure of power at any moment in time. Watt-hours is a measure of power over time.
For example, the Energy Pedal creates 200 watts of power per hour. If you pedal for 2 hours, then you have created 400 watt-hours (200 watts x 2 hours) of power.
This 400 watt-hours would power a 100 watt light bulb for 4 hours, a 200 watt large screen TV for 2 hours and so on.
Directions
Carefully climb onto the bike and begin pedaling. Pedal hard
enough so that you are turning on the lights and fountain.
The fly wheel does not stop when you stop pedaling. When
you decide to stop, be careful to take your feet off the pedals to let the bike slow down to a stop.
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