2010 EVENTS
Finally, on 17th December we did a pedal powered Christmas tree outside Headspace Community Arts Gallery in Bracknell town centre but so far I haven't managed to get hold of any pictures of it.





On 9th November we provided five pedal generators and some hand crank devices for Bucks County Council's Junior Road Safety Officer Training Day near Aylesbury.
Afterwards they sent us a publishable picture (always difficult for school events) of our popular 80 Watt light bulb power display.
You can immediately see the difference between the people who regularly cycle to school and those who don't; the regular cyclers can usually produce between 60 and 80 Watts compared to only 20 to 40 from the less fit ones.



On 14th October we did a relatively rare session with the mp3 DJ System at Whitegrove Youth Club. Although it was designed for outdoor use, it seems to be a lot easier to get indoor bookings. It's less powerful than some car stereos but its appearance leads some people to think it needs a music licence!
Anyway there wasn't a problem with running it inside the Youth Club and there were plenty of people with mp3's and phones to play tracks from.
Turning the lights off enabled the system's own LED umbrella illuminations and some of our LED discs to show up well.















Our last outdoor event for this year (almost) was at Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre on 11th September. It was quieter than the Swindon event the previous weekend not surprisingly as the weather wasn't very good to start with so we'd set up under a rain cover. Later on the sun came out and we moved some of the stuff out front but left things that light up inside as they showed up better.
There were some good local stalls and activities including the pole lathe shown on the left and this junk percussion setup.



On 4th September we were at Swindon's Woodland Games, an event promoting every kind of outdoor excercise. In keeping with the theme, we set up our 80W load box and there were plenty of people  competing to see who could keep all eight bulbs alight. Apart from running six pedal generators, we had small demonstrations of direct wind and solar power from our educational stuff. The wind wasn't consistent enough to run anything but the solar panel spent most of the day powering our car-boot Robot Voice Megaphone. As usual, by the afternoon things had got quite busy, and due to the changeable wind we'd had to move the bubble machine three times to keep the bubbles out of the ice cream van next door.
The event's main stage was being powered by Coltek's impressive double solar tracker, something which didn't seem to be given enough mention in the programme.



From 15th to 21st August we were at the Woodcraft Folk's London Region Camp at Bentleys Copse near Guildford. Apart from running a few good pedal generator sessions, we did some dismantling workshops and representatives of each of the camp's five 'villages' built an LED windmill for the village which could also be used for future camps. Here's the one built by the Wimbledon camp, and this one was done by Ealing. It's been a good year for wind, so it wasn't surprising some of the completed windmills were lighting up well at night. Another good effect of the wind was on the pedal powered bubble machine sessions - the most amazing swirls and columns of bubbles were formed showing turbulence from lines of trees. (This also explained why none of the windmills spent much time pointing in any one direction!) Apart from the various London groups, there were also some kids from the Czech Republic. They didn't speak much English, but it didn't take them long to get in to playing Simpsons Road Rage on the pedal powered Gameboy.


We did a very local event on 7th August, the new Fete at Rowan's Children's Centre in Bracknell. There was a bit of a slow start as the weather looked uncertain, and events that haven't happened before never have good attendance.
The absence of several stalls that should have been next door didn't help either, but as the day went on we did get a steady trickle of pedallers. We had an unusual enquiry from an army Major who was interested in the idea of pedal powered computer games for use in Afghanistan.



















On 29th July we provided three pedal generators at Witney Environmental Fun Day in the Corn Exchange. It was a small indoor setup and even a reduced version of the mp3 Booster had to be kept at half volume, though there was enough room for an inflatable binliner monster and plenty of fit cycling kids competing to power 80 Watts of light bulbs. The indoor location was ideal to try out the new christmas light LED's I'd fitted to our table demo windmill.




On 10th July we were at Kirtlington Village Fete in Oxfordshire. The weather was very hot, not ideal for energetic pedalling but we still had a few people competing to light up the top lamp on the 80W load box. It was surprisingly windy, so not good for binliner monsters but the bubbles from the pedal powered bubble machine were going well across the site.


We were invited to the Green Day at Deanery Primary School in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham on 25th June. We don't generally attempt to take pictures in schools - apart from the permissions issue we're just too busy! We did however finish up with a load of new pedal ideas drawn by the children.



On 19th June we were at Headspace Festival in Bracknell www.headspacefestival.co.uk running the mp3 DJ System in the Skate Park, alternately with a Mains powered conventional DJ system at the other end. We were a good distance from the Main Stage tent so we didn't get the sound spill problem we'd had at the South Hill Park event last year. There was plenty of BMX activity going on including some quite lively stuff right next door. Although the weather was mostly cloudy, we did manage to run for a short time directly from the Solar Panel at least as a demonstration, but then it was back to the pedal power. By this time we'd moved the system onto the edge of the tarmac where it was more visible. There was a live graffiti demonstration running at the side of the skate park. Here's an end-on photo of the final result - it wasn't safe to get right in front of it due to the BMX and skate activity. Later in the day we got some more sunshine for our final session but we decided not to go for the panel again as the sun was behind us so it would have had to go in front of the system too close to the BMX'ers.








On 12th June we did a day at Warfield Village Fete to support Warfield Environment Group www.warfield-env-group.co.uk. The weather was very good though too windy for inflatable binliner monsters most of the time. We were running four pedal generators and displaying our giant hedgecutter-beaked junk sculpture fly. It's very popular with the kids so it had just been given a Health & Safety makeover including ball ends for its legs which had previously been a bit sharp and a front bumper for the end of the beak.
As always there was lots of bubble machine activity.



From 3rd to 6th June we were at Sunrise Celebration Festival near Shepton Mallet. We had a nice position in the Children's Area which had many good activities including a skate ramp.
Our pedal powered bubble machine ran almost non stop for four days, filling the area with bubbles. Some of the time the bubble machine's generator was also used to power a Gameboy.
One of the best features of the Children's Area was the daily Water Rocket Competition. The kids made water rockets out of fizzy drink bottles. They were carefully placed in a bucket in the arena and launched with great ceremony. Here's one making its descent.



May is the start of the busy season and only five days after the previous event we did a day for Sustrans Bike-It (www.sustrans.org.uk) at Kingswood School in Reigate, a new area for us. Unusually we were given some publishable pictures afterwards. The light level in the school hall was just right for stuff that illuminates like our LED discs. Here's the pedal powered Plasma Globe. Something which takes a lot more effort is lighting 60 Watts of old fashioned filament light bulbs. Of course, the inflatable Binliner Monster and the sound system shown on the right were more popular than the more educational stuff.



15th May was the start of Reading Council Children's Festival at Christchurch Meadow. The weather was much better than the week before with some sun and enough wind to run our windmills and distribute bubbles from the bubble machine over a wide area. The black one does a bright blue spiral pattern which is best seen at night - you can just see two of the LED's in the picture. The small grey one actually generates some useful voltage conveyed to the ground via a guitar jack plug and socket used as slip rings and has been used to power Nintendo games when the wind's consistent. Our six pedal generators were busy all day. The binliner monster and the pedal powered mp3 amplifier were very popular. Nintendo Gameboys take very little power so adding one on the generator running the sound system is a good way of making sure it keeps going!


















On 8th May we did our first proper public event of the year. Bracknell Friends of the Earth were running a 'pop up shop' for their Spring Awakening so we set up a pedal powered bubble machine outside as well as a couple of other pedal generators as an attraction for children. The weather wasn't particularly good but the bubble machine was popular as usual and filled Charles Square with bubbles for most of the day. Other outside attractions included a man in a cow suit on a Rokitscience electric trike.


 
 
 


The earliest stuff we've done this year were all educational events involving primary school kids which didn't allow photos.
We did the Kent High Weald Big Day Out at Bedgebury Pinetum again, and school science week including a day at Western House School in Slough for Sustrans Bike-It.