Pedal Power Racing Exhibition Built for Pepsico Promotion

PROJECT OBJECTIVE

Create an intriguing pedal power bike generator power racing exhibit for PEPSICO's trade show booth that would tie into the booth's environmental theme. This customer wanted some exciting software and sound effects that would draw visitors into the booth and show how each rider is generating man made energy during the power race. The race typically lasts for 15 seconds so it is more a sprint than an endurance race. Note that the trade show area was very warm, so people didn't' want to get sweaty.

Larger Version of the Display Picture- PDF File Version

(DC 150W Pedal Power Bike Generator Power Racing Exhibit Built for PEPSICO Promotional Booth.)

When the two participants pedal, voltage goes to to the power conditioning box through a solid state relay, then into a 1 FARAD capacitor, and then into an AC Inverter, then into a hand mixer and a police light. There are 0.02 Ohm precision resistors in the power conditioning box used to calculate the current being supplied to the electrical load.

A USB Data acquisition box (LabJACK) measures the current sensing precision resistor and also measures voltage from a 22turn Bourns potentiometer which divides the voltage by 1/4. This must be done because the data acquisition box can only read up to 10 Volts, and some people where pedaling so fast that they generated 40 Volts. The potentiometer is used as a voltage divider to bring the voltage down to a level that can be a calibrated accurate signal.

LabVIEW software for DC bike generator power racing, monitors voltage, current and displays company logos as the two bike riders are racing each other. The first one to create 0.00001 KW-HOURS wins. As the race is going on, LabVIEW software is playing crowd cheering .WAV sound effect files.