MRA is now up and running in Australia

MRA is now up and running in Australia and slowly we have been developing our website (www.magrev.org.au).
We have some exciting gigs lined up, tune into the website for more details on:

• Pedal powered workshop and film screenings at DETOUR Festival, Hong Kong (Nov-Dec 2011) - we are currently seeking short film submissions.  Submit a film.
• Pedal Powered Installation by Jessica Coughlan at Object Gallery
• Workshop on How to Build a Pedal Power Generator as part of the the TRY THIS AT HOME series with Object Gallery (Dec 2011). 
• Twilight Market Screening in Bribane (Jan 2012).
• Cycle In Cinema at Taylors Square, Sydney (Feb 2012) -3 nights of films curated by Queer Screen, the Institute for Experimental Arts and much more.

Stay tuned for more.
If you have an idea for an awesome pedal powered event or workshop, please get in touch with us.

The Nimble Crimper: building MRA's 8 bike generator

The Renewable Energy Innovations Workshop, Nottingham.

Getting close to Nottingham on the train, I found these next to the station

I'm in Nottingham this week working with one of MR's Directors, Dr Matthew Little.  Matt is an electrical engineer and runs Renewable Energy Innovation, which speacialises in electronics for renewable energy systems and education projects.  Matt does his own pedal power events and workshops locally around Nottingham.
 He is helping me to build MRA's first 8-bike generator, which will be used to power cinema screenings and other events in Australia very very soon!

Day One:
Arrived into sunny Nottingham with my bike and a 800w invertor.  It is a very heavy piece of equipment, but my bike did a great job doubling as a trolley.
We spent the first day planning our system.  The Mag Rev system is good, but we thought we could add a few improvements to it.  In the office there has been a big dabate about the value of fuses, mostly because everytime an event suffers a glith, the fuses have been at the problem.  Some argue we should not worry about fuses, but I feel that with so much expensive equipment in our regulator boxes I would prefer to have something cutting the circuit if a surge did go through.  So Matt and I spent the day investigating a variety of circuit breakers!  We bought heaps of them -  2A, 5A, 25A, 30A and managed to find 140A circuit breakers - meaning that the MRA box has no fuses!!!  This also means we won't need to buy more fuses if one breaks, hopefully reducing of contribution to the landfill.
Matt also developed some great circuit diagrams for the 8-bike system - and I am very proud to say I can read them.  I spent most of the evening searching the internet and ordering all our components. What a big day indeed!

Day Two:
Drill day.  Power tools and lots of new holes were made today.  

A good looking tool indeed :)

Impeccable light for an action shot.  Loving it.

Holes completed - symmetry for sanity

Day Three:

Finding the perfect place for all the parts

 With most of the hole drilled, we could do much without the components.  We spent most of Wednesday waiting for parts to arrive from our order.  Every time someone knocked on the door Matt and I would jump up and run to the door, only to greet the non-delivery person at the door with our looks of disappointment.
 The delivery took all day, and it wasn't until 4pm that we got back to work on the boxes.  How exciting it was to see everything fitting together so well, and how frustrating it was to see that some design decisions were not perhaps the best.  It is interesting, how there are so many considerations and scenarios have to be made.  Even with two heads thinking and discussing it, there were lots of cries of "the bloody inverter is in the way again."

Taking shape - Step down DC Convertor, 1F Capacitor and Sine Wave Invetor - the skeleton is complete

Junction Box Insides - super mega inverter

Little feet - the finer touches of our Generator

Matt is also involved with Hack Space Nottingham, which he took my to visit one eve.  It is is an incredible member run space open for creating just about anything.  I visited there last night and saw people sewing, creating stuff with laser printers, scorching velvet, fixing bicycles, sharing free fruit from post harvest scavenging - the possibilities are endless.

Day Four:

Matt is away running a pedal powered smoothie for a local event, so I am left on my own to read circuit diagrams and wired our machine. How exciting indeed.  I feel like the plan to come over here, hang out with Mag Rev and learn by osmosis has definitely worked out.  I am heaps more confident with the electronics of pedal power, so much so that I can detect my own mistakes and work logically through them, rather than before, when my mind would just glaze over into euphoric white noise.

Matt has developed some clear diagrams of the system I have put together.  We'll put it on MRA's website when we get it live - stay tuned.

Day Five:

The final connector cables are made and here she is!!!  MRA's first 8-bike generator.  Day 5 was spent testing the system.  We found we had wired the Speakon plugs incorrectly, which had use cursing the bridge rectifiers for a while, until we found our way to the real source of the problem.  After that, it was all systems go, lights, beeps, voltage through, DC, AC, AC/DC and she' frickin' bullet proof mate.

We spent the rest of the day development cheat sheets, circuit diagrams and collated information to be used in the workshop.  

(Oh, and we also went down to the marina to perve on narrrow boats - hehe :)

AND WE ARE FINISHED! -A moment of celebration please - HIP HIP HOORAY!

In With The Pigs: Magnificent Kingdom Office Opening Party

A Reason to Celebrate:  It has been a long time coming but 22 September saw Mag Rev celebrate the completion of their office space at Hackney City Farm.  The office has been dubbed the "Magnificent Kingdom" and you can view the story of it's development here, here and here.  What a mammoth effort it was indeed to get the secondhand shipping container into the farm grounds.  Big thanks to all those strong men made sure it landed perfectly next to the pig pen.

Shaun & Ellen installing bike sculptures for the party

 We spent a frantic day cleaning, clearing, constructing, cooking and drinking loads of coffee.  It is always surprising how much work putting on even a small event is, but this one was a labour of love for us all.



We called the office party "In With The Pigs" because that is very much were we now are - right next to them.  Despite pigs common reputation - greedy, slovenly, smelly - we find them to be wonderful neighbours.  They do a great job reminding us of the important things in life - rest, peace, affection and smiling in your sleep.  At the moment they are about 5 meters away from our office window, but soon their pen will be extended to come right to the underneith our window sill.  I hope this gets done before I have to go back to Australia.




For the Party we erected some wikid bike sculpture that Shaun had made a while ago.  It was great to dust them off and have them watching over the party.  The wooden one is designed to pedal a bike, when hooked up to a reversed pedal generator, but unfortunately it snapped a tendon in its leg, so couldn't show off its pedal skills.
We cleaned out the space and made it into a gallery, exhibiting photos from the volunteer day.  So many people helped make this wonderful office a reality.  It is inspiring to see how Mag Rev can drive so many people to be involved.
Check out more of Shaun's work on his new blog -Termite Head.

View out of the office to party and pigs

Photo exhibition of the building process and volunteer day

Party sytems go!

Entrance to the Magnificent Kingdom.  We're not minimalists, there is usually furniture inside.  For the party we converted the office to a gallery space, exhibiting photos of the office's development.

A touch of rustic bicycle calm

About the Office:  A second hand shipping container has been transformed into a brightly-lit office space, made from recycled and salvaged materials, a roof top garden of native wildflowers and conductive heating system.

  The aim of the design was to have the least amount of impact of the site as possible.  The roof top garden acknowledges the footprint that the office has created and helps link a green corridor to the surrounding wildflower meadows.  

The original design



In fact, every part of the office’s design has been well considered in order to have the least amount of impact on the site and the environment:
- The foundation under the shipping container is made from crushed rocked and reclaimed railway sleepers.  As the shipping container is lighter than a regular building, we were able to avoid laying a concrete foundation.  

Roof top wildlife

-  

The shipping container has been wrapped in Black Mountain sheep’s wool insulation manufactured in Wales from UK sheep for warmth, a breathable membrane for waterproofing and encased in timber from recycled pallets that were previously used in a temporary structure at the Spitalfields City Farm.  The old markings on the pallets have been retained, to create a rustic assortment of natural and industrial shades on exterior for office.  All the off cuts from the pallets were given to the Hackney City Farm to be used as kindling in the wood burner in straw bale education building, so nothing was wasted.
 - The floor and the ceiling have also been insulated using recycled wood fibres.

Our little fish bowl to the outside world.

- On the interior, the floor and cupboards were made from strawboard, which is a material made from waste wood fibre and compressed with natural plant resins.  These have been finished with linseed oils rather than a varnish, while the interior walls have been painted with natural paint from Ecos Organic Paints.

Fully operational

- 

The building is then topped off with the wildflower roof top garden, which follows the principles of the Brown Roof concept.  Some of the flowers that can be found in the garden are Crested Dog’s Tail, Blue Fleabane, Dune Fescue and Creeping Cinquefoil.   The garden has been designed to provide habitat for a variety of insect species, creating a greater biodiversity than was on the site before the office’s construction.

The office is a cosy but adequate size to house MR’s team of six staff and volunteers.  Its north-facing aspect gives the space a great source of natural light all day long.  There are plans to connect up a conductive heating system for the winter, utilising the heat from the kiln in the farm’s pottery studio. This will keep the office warm during the winter using the excess heat, rather than building a separate boiler or installing another fuel/wood burner. 
The office looks over the paddocks that during the days are filled farm animals and visitors to the farm.  It is great exposure for MR, having so many visitors coming to the farm and then stumbling upon the office.
The total budget for the new office was £8,000, which included a generous donation of £6,000 from the Castle Climb Centre as part of a grant program that run in 2009.  “The funding mostly covered the costs of materials so we were lucky to have such a fantastic team of volunteer to do the design, building and construction. 





A big thanks particularly to Shaun Termitehead for doing all the construction gratis - what a great dude.

Let the party began!!

Farm ladies start the party with laughter

Feast time!

Mag Rev team get to sit down & relax after a busy day of party preparations

Farm staff also getting to sit down after a busy week

Relaxing MR's tube lounges

MR Offices shiny clean windows - aren't they grand

Shaun preparing the BBQ

We were real glad to share the celebrations with the HCF staff, who were invaluble in making the office a reality.

Babs cooking up a storm

Night falls, drinks come out & celebrations begin

Shadows created from the fire add extra effect to the Cycle Demon.

Glowing Office or was it just my Cidered Eyes?

The sun disappears behind the paddocks while guests enjoy their BBQ dinner.

Guests viewing the Magnificent Kingdom construction story.

Charlie Blue & the Colours play a few tunes.

A warm night by the fire with live pedal powered music

Pedal Gods watch over guests as they enjoy the celebrations

"...triumph over adversity, enthusiasm over apathy..."

The following is an article published in Boneshaker Magazine #3.  It's a wonderful and uplifting story on how the Magnificent Revolution started and survives.


In a marquee nestled in the festival’s midst, a clutch of wide-eyed young things are pedalling furiously on stationary bikes and staring intently at a darkened cinema screen.  Suddenly, the projector flickers into life, dust whirling in its beam. A cheer goes up: Magnificent Revolution’s first project is a success. The story of this collective of hard pedalling renewable energy champions is one of triumph over adversity, enthusiasm over apathy. It’s pipe dream meets Heath Robinson meets the future.
So the story goes, their first foray into bikes as energy generators came when a bunch of kids from Cambridge had the idea of a Drive-In Cinema, but with bicycles instead of cars – hundreds of legs whirring to produce the power for the performance. The problem was, they didn’t really know if such a thing was even possible, so they pulled together a motley array of engineers, electricians, designers, filmmakers and artists and began to experiment, initially using electric scooter motors with roller-skate wheels pushed on to the shaft, the whole unlikely contraption bolted to a homemade stand. The technology was limited, but after some trial and error, a workable ten-bike system emerged and the Magnificent Revolution Cycling Cinema was born.
Three years on, Magnificent Revolution have helped to educate thousands of people about energy consumption and sustainable technology, held hundreds of generator-building workshops and provided a renewable energy supply at over sixty music, film and art events. And they’re still expanding.
Boneshaker caught up with Director Adam Walker, a twinkly-eyed enthusiast with a friendly beard and an unruly crest of blond hair. “The volunteers call me ‘General’,” he laughs, “but maybe that’s because I make them all read an excerpt from this book by Che Guevara about the morals and discipline of the revolutionary fighter.” A joke it maybe, but the revolutionary passion beneath is very real. Adam grew up in rural Shropshire, riding his dad’s old racing bike. “We were deep in the country and the tracks weren’t made for racers, but the fact that we lived over a mile from the local shop was a good incentive to get on a bicycle.  We’d head out around the countryside, up to The Devil’s Chair (a big pile of rocks on a hill nearby) - but mainly it was a way to get out of the house and away from our ’rents.”
After studying Fine Art at Uni in Newcastle, he worked on arts journal a-n Magazine, had some exhibitions at the Baltic, started a creative collective called Normal Life ‘and spent a lot of time scooting around the Tyne on a BMX’.
But it was only when he got to London that he really got into bikes. “It was just the best way to get around the city. Your psychogeography totally changes when you cycle around London. You start joining up all those dots on the Tube map, and the place seems a little more tangible.’
His growing love of bikes dovetailed with meeting the Magnificent Revolution gang. It was through the Common Room Productions project that Adam first met two other
artists, Shaun and Babs. Common Room Productions employed artists to help engage and give hope to vulnerable people experiencing mental illness, learning disabilities or long term illnesses like AIDS and HIV. Adam, Shaun and Babs hit it off, and six months later Babs and Shaun started Magnificent Revolution – “and I just got sucked into it” says Adam. “I helped with their website, then started organising events, and soon I was totally hooked. It was a chance to use art for a purpose, as an educational tool, as well as just looking at its potential to communicate with people.  I remember the time when we first did the Wood Festival (Truck Records’ renewable energy-powered folk festival near
Oxford), and talking with the Mag Rev guys about what they were into politically, socially, environmentally... their manifesto was just perfect. I’ve always worked collaboratively, so finding likeminded people who were so passionate, it all seemed to fall into place for me.”
Magnificent Revolution offers huge potential for cross-pollination of interests and ideas. It brings together art, bikes, cinema, sustainability, education, the potential for mobility, for exploring the DIY aesthetic. “It pulls so much together, just making and sharing these pedal powered appliances. Like the lawnmower chopper – it’s sculptural, educational; it touches on engineering, design, form and function... Magnificent Revolution’s so adaptable and it keeps evolving in so many ways. That’s what makes it exciting.”
That evolution is impressive – from that first scratchbuilt cinema, the Magnificent Revolution empire now covers sound systems, recording sessions with bands, educational workshops, an online ideas-swapping hub…  “The project keeps on growing. I just finished working on a new generator that can power a 12v LED projector and sound system off just two bikes - we’re going to take it out and try it over the weekend. We keep popping up with our cycle cinema screenings across London and beyond. We’ve also started a project called the Pedal Sessions, where we’re doing some recordings with bands at festivals, and taking local bands to do some pedal-powered recordings in unusual spaces like empty offices, car parks and rooftops. Music’s always been a big thing for all of us, so working with bands
and DJs seemed a natural progression.”
But at the heart of all the Revolution’s fun stuff is education. They run a programme of workshops to introduce people to renewable technology and give them a hands-on opportunity to try stripping wires and putting together bicycle generators for themselves. “A lot of the components are the same as the ones you’d use for setting up a solar or wind-power system so, for some, it’s the first step in familiarising themselves with renewables. People bring so many ideas to the workshops, it’s amazing. I hope that, in our own little way, we’ve helped some of them to turn their bicycle power dreams into a reality.”
Over the last couple of years, Magnificent Revolution have been bringing their bicycle generators into schools, too. “We set up the kit and then run an experiment to see what the kids can and can’t power. It’s amazing to see three of them struggle to power a single 60W light bulb, and then just one of them power three energy-saving light bulbs without breaking a sweat. We did a series of pop-up cinemas
in Birkenhead earlier in the year. Huge areas of the city centre have been torn down and earmarked for redevelopment but when the economy went belly up, there was no investment available so the area has been decimated by a lack of community spaces and social hubs. We took over some of these spaces and screened some local artists’ films. All the kids and their parents from the local area came out to see what was going on and it felt like we had quite an impact there, despite the fact that the kids tried to nick our bikes at the end of every gig!”
Here’s where Adam’s enthusiasm really shines - the realisation of Magnificent Revolution’s potential to change people’s understanding. It’s not about suggesting that bike power might be a solution to mass energy-provision, but about connecting people with the power they use, encouraging them to take the need to reduce consumption seriously. “Telling people that they are using 1800 watts has a very limited value, because it is difficult to know what that means. How can we expect to change something we can’t comprehend? But the bike generators demonstrate without words, and people can relate it to their daily life. Wake up and jump into a nice hot shower (around 30 bikes), then a hot cup of coffee (60 people pedalling outside the kitchen), whack on the toaster and you’d need around a total of 110 cyclists just to get through breakfast. The workshops bring all that to life. That’s why they’re so satisfying to do. People really love it; they walk away with a total change in perspective.”
To build a community around that perspective change, Bike Lab has been set up, as an online space for Magnificent Revolution’s thousands of former pupils to keep in contact, share ideas, ask questions and keep each other posted on what they’re up to. “You see bicycle power all over the place these days and it’s good to see so many people engaging with the technology and doing amazing things with it. The site’s evolved to include people from all over the world, working not just with bicycle power, but with tall bikes, scrap bikes, weird bikes, bamboo bikes, the lot.”
From a tiny grassroots project, Magnificent Revolution has flourished into a robust not-for-profit business. “So many people have shared our vision and helped us along the way, and now we’re very close to being financially sustainable – something that’s all too rare for environmental and social projects.” Though Adam and Babs now draw a minimal monthly wage, the project remains not for profit, so all the rest of the revenue goes into kit, office space, “the daily grind of keeping it all going.”
Of course it’s not all plain-sailing – “when you’re swimming against the current you have to work harder to get anywhere” says Adam. “Projects like ours are always full of set-backs. We’re trying to drive environmental and social change in a world that is not really set up for that. Sometimes it feels like we’re banging our heads against a brick wall, but we’re starting to see through the cracks. The
rewards outweigh the hard times and so we’re still here.
Hopefully when all kids are cycling to school, learning from books made of recycled paper and eating local food cooked from scratch... they will look back at us and be proud that our generation had our heads on straight.”  His optimism is inspiring – despite the almost daily run-ins with the ‘we’re all doomed anyway, so why bother?’ brigade. “That’s just part of the challenge of working in the environmental sector. No one really knows all the answers.  We’re all just guessing. The Magnificent Revolution motto comes from the Zapatistas “We’d rather die on our feet than live on our knees”. It’s about principles. We try and demystify some of this doom and gloom and show that this could actually be one of the greatest opportunities in the history of mankind for us to show just how big our brains
are and put evolution to the test. We can either end up like bacteria on a Petri dish or as an intelligent civilization on planet Earth. We still have hope. Isn’t that positive?” There’s a popular misconception that reducing energy demand means living miserably austere, puritanical lives, but seeing the smiles at a Magnificent Revolution soundsystem party, or the excitement of an ad hoc outdoor film screening, you soon realise that there’s fun to be had too. And as Adam points out, it’s not like plasma screens
and giant fridges ever made anyone genuinely happy. “The technology we need to live in a low carbon way en masse already exists. What we need is backing: by the people, politicians and businesses. We’ve all got some work to do to make it happen, but it is possible!”
The Mag Rev team practice what they preach - using bike trailers to travel whenever it’s possible, running a biodiesel van when it’s not. When they did gigs in Greece, they went by train. An invitation to set up an MR in Australia presented a quandary. “Our environmental policy is vigorous and prohibits flying unless absolutely necessary. We’re looking into ways to travel overland – possibly
heading out across Siberia by train, but it looks like it’ll be prohibitively expensive. So we need to weigh up our CO2 emissions from flying there against the beneficial environmental impact the project could potentially have.  It’s a tough call.”
The principle of energy awareness isn’t that distant for most of us – it’s only in the last generation or two we’ve become such a wasteful society. Our grandparents knew how to be frugal – they didn’t take unlimited heat and light for granted. Magnificent Revolution brings something of that pleasing thriftiness back to the fore.
“Because we always start by finding the most efficient appliance to do a job and then work back, I soon found myself thinking how does a TV work? How does a projector work? Can it be built better, with energy use as a priority? The problem of course is that the workings are all hidden in a shiny box, so no-one thinks about it.
But I look at everything differently now. When I pass a skip I look for computer fans and electrical components– stuff I now know I can recycle. Our original kit was old reclaimed motors from junk shops, found roller skate wheels; the stands were from scrap metal. Not everyone has sufficient time or serendipity on their side to source parts from skips, so Adam and his team have been working on getting the bicycle generator design stable enough to sell on to interested parties. It’s taken a few years
of fine adjustment. “We still want to promote the DIY ethic, so we can provide people with the kit to build it themselves but we also wanted to offer something ready made that groups could use in their campaigns, projects and communities.” So you can now bag a bike generator for yourself and start experimenting - even start your own cycle cinema. How much you spend depends on how big you want to go, of course. MR’s big bicycle cinema system cost around £3000 to put together. But you could build a bicycle generator with a scooter motor, roller-skate wheel, stand, capacitor and regulator for about £100. Then pick up a 12 volt sound system and LED projector or make them yourself, maybe another £100. You can find parts almost anywhere, skips, junk shops, Freecycle. “Be resourceful”, says Adam, “get some friends to help you. And give us a shout if you get stuck!”
Working with others is central to the Mag Rev dream – the coming months will see them hooking up
with the Spoke n’ Chain collective for a special screening at The Cube Cinema, Bristol, and they’ve recently united with online community hub Buzzbank to try and fund a new Cycle-In Cinema to tour around London in 2011 – cyclists roll up on their bikes, hook them up to the generator and then power the performance for themselves. As all revolutions must, they’ve come full circle – back to the original Drive-In Cinema idea. A group of wide-eyed young things, pedalling furiously and staring intently at a cinema screen. And then the projector flickers into life, and a cheer goes up...

"I've been waiting all my life to pedal"

"I've been waiting all my life to pedal" are the words from a little boy who stumbled upon our workshop at the Festival of Britain.  It was so good to see how keen pedal were to get involved, particularly when you commonly get a case of the nerves like I.
When you set up at a festival often you can get those pre-party nervousness shootig through your body.  You begin thinking, "ooooo, 11am til 5pm....am I going to spend the day twiddling your thumbs or desperately spruiking your wears to every rabbit-in-headlights passersby?"  That's how I thought it would be, but as with everything, I little bit of positive energy goes along way.

Two kids and their parents walked our way, attracted to the cables and electrical components spread across our floor.... that's when we pounced! We started with a bit of elementary theory about atoms and protons and neutrons, and the kids slowly start to look around for where their parents have gone.  Then we give the tools and let them play with the components of a sound system their dad has specifically told them never to touch.
By the time they are on the bike, other kids are coming over looking to get a chance to ride the bike.  When the music kicks in on the 12V sound system, we have the whole hall's attention.  We are then flat out with kids and adults building and deconstructing 12V sound systems and AC generators. 
By 4pm we've done 4 or so workshops, done a couple of interviews and are counting our pennies for a pint each. 
The biggest attraction of pedal power that day was mother's wanting to get a pedal generator attached to the television, making it only possible to watch TV if the kids are active.  I thought the mums wanted it as a deterrent for watching TV, but then I was reminded of how much fun the kids were having pedaling.  If you were watching an action adventure, pedal power might make it like being part of the movie.  Pedaling for your telly would definitely, however, detract anyone from sitting and watching any old crap though. 

We backed up the workshop with a Cycle In Cinema, screening Peter Sellers's I'm Alright Jack.  It was well attended and heaps of people keen to cycle.  I was impressed with how sweaty people got but still wanted to keep going.  Two kids too small to fit on the bicycles shared the load by pedaling using one leg each on either side of the bike.  Very sweet indeed.  Georgie was the star - she pedaled for the whole film!!  Go girl!
 The whole event ended, as they do, with a huge clap and one unifed shigh.

Lessons learnt - fixies with mountain bike tyres can make it really hard to pedal a cycle in cinema as you can't change gear to relive yourself from strong resistance.