I like it!

thats so cool, i wanted to make a pedal generator still do, to power a cinema, i thought that if it can work for a cinema then it could work for a computer, i guess you can power most anything with pedals!

SMEEAR, the very first projectors were pedal powered with a flywheel that built up the speed and then left it there for as long as possible until u needed to start pedaling again.... a real art form to keep it at 12 or 18fps as they used back then.... there was also a a chain connected to spin the acetate record underneath the projector for the sound!!! So u pedaled for both picture and sound!

Cool idea (the competition) but it would be nice to see some mechanical devices rather than a bunch of people pedaling generators to power electrical stuff. Like Jonaent (Jon) suggests a mechanically driven cinema, the old projectors are all mechanically driven so could easily be powered by a big flywheel, possibly driven through some form and centrifugal clutch to regulate the speed. You'd probably need to generate electric too, to run the computer and amplifiers for the sound.

something like a washing machine could be done purely mechanically

Cool stuff though.

nice idea, but isn't the problem really how you store that energy that you produce so it can be used at a later date. Who wants to sit pedalling for hours and as soon as you stop it all goes tits up/stops producing energy.

Um, batteries?

A genny (car alternator) and Lead acid batteries are probably the most practical/sensible way of storing your power, I just hope the competition has more inspiring entries than everyone making pedal power generators and battery banks.

An alternator attached to the wheel of a standard bicycle rear wheel, directly powering one of these:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2861987.stm

That would be attached to the inside of a pannier bag.

The idea being simple;
1) You stick your phone, iPod, etc in your pannier.
2) Cycle your daily commute to work.
3) Your stuff is always charged.

The benefit is to remove all of the unnecessary overnight charges, and to wipe out the cost of electricity leakage from permanently connected power points.

It could be even easier. It uses electromagnetic induction. It could be possible to generate that field without just using a dynamo to power the splashpad.

You could probably build a rotating magnet array off the end of a hub to generate the EM field, you then just need an ' electronic stuff' pocket near the magnet array to put the stuff in to be charged.

EDIT: magnet arrag pay collect passing ferrous crap so don;t be surprised to find half a dozen rusty nails and bits of car stuck to it at the end of your commute.

Seriously is anyone interested in having a go at this? I have a bit of an idea about how to store the energy generated, not sure I have the mechanical skills to realise it on my own. Frankly not too worried what we use it to power as long as it's something interesting.

does it have to have something with electricity? we could have a go at something that emits electromagnetic-al waves and fries every piece of technology in range...powered by pedals for instance

Just looked at the youtube site for this and saw the Heath Robinson contraption Specialized put together to power a laptop, bearing in mind the overall design I was rather surprised it wasn't painted white and didn't have any London decals.

They're using a wheel to drive a DC generator that they then run through an invertor to produce AC current that they then plug a battery charger into (duh, a transformer that converts AC back to DC) to charge the laptop's battery.

Unless I'm missing some very clever/technical detail wouldn't it be rather more efficient to take the DC current produced, run it through some kind of smoothing circuit, if neccessary run the resultant DC current through a transformer to get it to the right voltage and use this to charge the laptops battery?

Er, Stef, how we then going to post to the forum?

we just wait for civilization to be rebuilt, in the meantime we all cycle about

Oh, thats okay then.

spoke to my friend about this, he said if someone's got a really brilliant idea, should develop it yourself (get funding, whatever) rather than give it to specialized.

reminds me of VH1 coming in to college asking us to do a brief, saw a round of results and fucked off without a sound. idea-nicking cnuts.

agreed

speaking of the rotating magnet array, i'm sure you could adapt an old dynohub; i had one on a fw hopper i restored some years ago.

you might will need a bridge rectifier though.