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STUDENT PEDAL POWER CHALLENGE

Lesson 1

Group of children in a classroom watching a presentation on wattage with a graph displayed on a screen, with a woman labeled as Pedal Power Generator Bike instructing.

SUMMARY

Students get a chance to ride a pedal power bicycle generator and see how many Watts, Volts, Amps they can put out using WattsVIEWTM software.

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OVERVIEW

Students line up an patiently wait their turn to get on the pedal power generator to see how many Watts they are able to put out.  As shown below, you can see that using a projector with  WattsVIEWTM   power monitor software shows students a real time measurement graphical chart with Watts as the vertical axis.  

You will see the same kids coming up over and over again to try and make the floating ball flow higher than they got it to float before.  you can make you own floating ball display for under $20.00.  

Six children at a science camp in Payson, Arizona, 2009, gather around a table displaying a floating ball, a pedal power generator, a WattsVIEW laptop computer, and a projector.

Materials Needed

A folding table was used to hold a laptop running the WattsVIEWTM power monitoring software, and a projector which was putting the image of the Watts Graph onto a large screen for all to observe during each student's turn.

Instruction

  1.  Setup the Belt Drive bicycle generator with a bicycle provided by you and using instructions shown here.

  2. Setup your floating ball or Light Comparison Box

  3. Setup your computer with WattsVIEW

  4. Have the students or adults line up to try and see how much energy they can put out.  Explain that when they are powering up a LED light bulb, they will feel that it is very easy to pedal.  Or if you are using a floating ball display, that the higher you make the ball float in the air, the more power you are putting out, and the graph will reflect the amount of work they are doing.