"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.

Cycle In Cinema 2011

A pedal powered scene from Panique Au Village (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Magnificent Revolution's first Cycle In Cinema was well attended by over 150 people.  Scheduled as the final event of the 2011 InTransit Festival, more than enough people arrived on bikes to hook into the generators and power the show.
I made a short film of the process (music by 2007 BLT house band - thanks guys). 

 The Mag Rev team also activated their spanking new radio transmitter for the very first time.  Audience could tune their radios to Mag Rev FM and listen to the film's audio.
Though the transmission was  not very strong, as the venue was located under the Westway creating a lot of interference, some sound was put through the Pop Up Cinema's speakers - which only used 60 watts!
The whole screening used 450 watts over the course of the movie - all powered by people!!
At the end of the screening, everyone let out a huge applause, both from exhaustion and a collective feeling of success.
All these beautiful photos are by Paul Bence (faces.paulbence.com).

Audience awaiting the first Cycle In Cinema (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Mag Rev's Dr Little preparing people power for the show (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Power of the people (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Pedal power motor, one of the twenty onsite (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Cyclists enjoying refreshments at the Cycle In Cinema Bar (photo by Pawell Kucznski).

Preparing for the biggest event Mag Rev has ever done!

Yesterday was a lot of work preparing for the launch of Mag Rev's 20-bike Cycle In Cinema.  Renewable energy master and Mag Rev member, Matt Little came down to help with the final assemblage of the system.
THE POWER
Adam has built 5 x 4 bike generators packs (see below) which fed DC power into a super pack to invert it all to 240V AC.  This will create a huge amount of power - we will only really know the potential on Sunday with 20 cyclists, but I'm guessing over 1 kilowatt at least.
THE DISPLAY
Matt also brought in his latest design - a remote power display which attaches to the power pack so everyone can see how much power is being created any time. 
THE AUDIO
We also tested the radio transmitter for the first time, which will give the cinema it's audio.  Guests have been asked to bring an FM radio to the screening and we have a couple of cool little wind up radios to share around.  Using the transmitter will mean that the pedal generators  only needs to create 1 watt to power the audio, rather than around 1 kilowatt for the speakers of a PA.  This will give more power than to the HD projector and give the effect of being like a Drive In Cinema without the cars.

Portobello Pop Up Cinema suite

THE VENUE 
We loaded the equipment into the space late last night and it is a very impressive venue.  The Pop Up Cinema is located under the Westway motorway, off Portobello Road.  The screen is enormous and the venue is a cross between gangster lounge and an hobo-utopia.
We'll be screening Panique Au Village, a Belgian animation that claims to be "Toy Story on Absinth," so we'll be serving chilled Absinth along with a variety of organic ciders, ales and wines.
All fingers crossed for this new Revolution gig....