With dwindling energy sources along with looming threats of global warming and climate change, researchers all over the world have started looking for ways to produce alternative energy. While sunshine and wind are the two easiest ways to produce clean renewable energy, there is no dearth of individuals looking to harvest other forms of energy as well, which include the conversion of kinetic energy, as produced by pedals, into usable electricity.
The Project
The Pedal Powered Lighting project by Malvika Vaswani was a part of Brown-RISD collaboration. Malvika Vaswani, along with her four team members, was asked to come up with energy saving solutions for an existing office building and the upshot was the Pedal Powered Lighting system. The pedal was meant to be placed under the office employees’ desk and powered by them when they need light. The surplus energy gets stored in a battery as a backup power source for later use. The entire system is wired to a light bulb.
Importance of Pedal Power
Nowadays, pedal power is not just being used for transportation. There are many creative and eco conscious persons who have used the power of pedaling to run a wide array of machines. There are pedal powered laptops, pedal powered lamps, pedal powered washing machines, and pedal powered grinders among others. These pedal powered creations are no less than a boon in the remote locations around the world that are not even connected to the electric grid.
Many third world organizations today are making use of human powered technologies to generate electricity. Industrial designers and DIY enthusiasts across the globe are constantly thinking of new and innovative ways to generate energy for everyday tasks.
