Could a giant exercise or many small wheels be used to create electricity for some small applications?

Question

Basically nowadays people don't get enough exercise and many pay to exercise. If we could offer people free exercise and at the same time a way to help their communities would they do it? What I am proposing is using human power to turn turbines to create some energy. I know it wouldn't be a lot of energy but the benefits would be more than the energy produced. Imagine a place in a city where people interested in exercising could go and join a group of other people doing laps walking or running pushing a wheel. For the wheel to turn everyone would have to help out. This could be done in schools too. Kids to get a half hour of exercise a day turning the wheel. Okay it is a bit crazy. But could anythign like this actually work? Could enough energy be created by a school wheel to provide lighting for the school?

The reason why I think people should do it, is for the exercise. So many people are overweight due to the modern day sedentary lifestyle and the food choices that are available. So the exercise is am additional benefit. Another benefit is that people can feel that they are helping the cause and their community even though it may be in a small way. Other benefits are the development of community relations and issue awareness. Plus when people are exercising they are not wasting fuel or resources on other things.

great ideas so far. thanks.

Answer 1

There are current applications of this. There are emergency lights that can be powered by hand crank, so you don't have to worry about batteries running out. There are emergency radios (that can also charge your cell phone), that can be powered by a crank.

It would take too much people power to use it for provide lighting for the school. The kids wouldn't have any time left for classes.

Answer 2

This is an interesting and good concept. In actuallity it may be possible to put electricity into the grid from a bike or similar machine. Just like solar panels put power back into the grid you could rig a system with exercise equipment to do it.

Question is who would do this. There was an exhibit at a science museum I've been to and the CRT TV was hooked up to the exercise bike so you can see how much effort is needed to power the TV. Today the LCD TV can be fairly easily powered by a exercise bike.

You could have a stationary bike you use to power your computer and nearby lights, I think some places might have this.

If you think it's a good idea you might consider hooking your computer up to such a machine and then you won't have to pay the electricity to run it.

Answer 3

There are lots of ways the people can harness their energy to make electricity.

I've seen plans to make gyms which are powered off the people who go there. (as someone previously mentioned).

In Popular Mechanics I saw an ad for a foot powered dynamo. Didn't make a lot of energy but enough to power small electronic equipment.

The $100 laptop project has made their laptops to function on a pull cord so the user can pull the cord for a minute and use the laptop for 15 (or something like that).

Then there was the bicycle powered television that someone previously mentioned.

However, people power is pretty small. It takes a very fit man and a well designed machine to get 100 Watts of power. That is fine for a laptop, television, fan, or small electronics but isn't nearly enough for things like Microwave (1500watts), Air conditioning (1000+ watts), or Stove

Some things like the dishwasher and clothes washer also use a lot of energy. Do it by hand and (a) you get a bit of exercise and (b) you use less electricity :)

Answer 4

I don't know about a massive scale or powering a city but I certainly have had the thought at gym seeing lines of us on treadmills, stationary bikes ..... watching TV.

It would not be hard to produce gym equipment that at least produced some of the power for lights, music, TV in the gym.

But frankly don't you think there's something funny about driving to the gym .... to ride a bike indoors ;-)

A better use of those "many small wheels" to create energy is instead of the gym get outside and run an errand by walking or riding a bike.

Answer 5

In the middle of WWII, people in Stalingrad rigged bicycles to operate automotive generators (before the alternator was invented) to generate electricity.... because they had no other way to make it.

So,,, it could be done at every Gym... put a generator on each treadmill and exercise bicycle. Rather than having the machine do the work for you (which really isn't good exercise anyway) Have the people who are trying to lose weight generate power.

Answer 6

A few months ago in the Los Angeles Times there was an article on a family that lived in LA that didn't use electricity by choice. The part of the article that stands out in my memory is they rigged their blender to a bike to make smoothies.

Answer 7

Wheels on dynamos connected on a series to a fairly large battery can make it work, but the power output per person is very small.

If the idea is to expect human exercise to pay off the investment to the machine, it would not really work.

Answer 8

Yes.. small human powered generators can be used to create electricity... for instance stationary bicycles can be used to power small electrical devices.. and in areas that electricity is not available they sometimes are used.

But it is expensive to set up and time consuming to operate.
I doubt if anyone would do it .. it would be soo uneconomical. So.. uch a scenario is unlikely ever to be used to create enough power to run a school or any large scale use.

Answer 9

yes!