Bicycles are among the most efficient energy conversion systems human-kind has ever invented .. the difference between a single lever (which, after all, is still an option with the existing design) and a bicycle lever/gear system, means all the difference in the world when the calories are, already, a regular daily concern for the target user.
Plus, it gives the bikes utility when they're not being rented, since the rental bays often take up space in areas accessible to the homeless, its also quite convenient for the target users.
I believe there is also a social element to this, as it is rather an unfortunately overlooked detail that bike-rental bays are often installed by businesses throughout metropolitan regions as a means of discouraging the homeless, who cannot afford to use these devices, which storage after all consumes public space .. giving the homeless a way to extract value from things is, in my opinion, an admirably placed bit of design altruism, and I, for one, hope to see many more examples of this kind of thinking.
I have often wondered what sort of conversion it would take to use an AK47 and a box of ammo to drill a well/pump water, instead of suppress human beings.. transformative technology is highly interesting, don't you agree?
>I'm quite surprised it can be built for £3, unless the battery is incredibly small.
Herein lies the rub - can the homeless build these things for £1 a piece, somewhere in London?
Because if the answer is more oil-based traffic across the worlds oceans to get these things made, I'm afraid the irony of the builder/user distinction is rather unfortunate...
No, it couldn’t. This is all very dumb, it’s a fantasy product with no effective use targeting a population that didn’t ask or want it, done so that everyone can say it’s great which makes them feel like they are good people.
Yes the specific object is dumb, both because it's design has holes, and because there are better ways to get it's ultimate function.
But the market for something like that is not limited to the exact specific population of homeless in London. A thing like that could be produced in the volume necessary to get economy of scale, simply by not being limited to one city and a single particular model of bike, or even limited to the homeless for that matter.
If you don't understand that, then you are in a poor position from which to call anyone else dumb.
This is an art/design project by an undergraduate student - not necessarily a serious product. But I wonder if cycling backwards is still easier than using a hand crank
I made a bidirectional pedalling exercise bike. Turns out there isn't much difference between forwards and backwards, but you do need to adjust the seat back by about 6 inches if you want maximal power output for backwards pedalling.
Regular humans can put out ~100 watts on a dual foot crank (like a bicycle) for hours. Since a phone battery is ~12 Watt-hours, you can collect energy for a full phone charge in ~10 mins (but you'll need a special buffer battery, since few lithium cells can charge that fast).
Yet on a single hand crank, even 20 watts and you'll get tired pretty quick.
Part of that is that leg muscles are bigger. Part of it is that you're used to walking or standing for long periods of time. Part of it is that with a dual crank you aren't putting useless effort into holding the device up and holding the weight of your own arms up.
End result: Hand cranks are useless unless you only need tiny amounts of energy out of a human.
It looks like the device even includes a little battery; I wonder if it holds enough charge to charge a phone battery fully, or if it just needs to be active charged for a while.
This is definitely more about the message, but actually, if a person could pedal pretty hard for like a half hour and get a couple charges out of it, that doesn’t see too impractical (ignoring the obvious objections, like usually coffee shops will let you get a little charge).
It could be a nice camping accessory. I bet a product already exists.
Such a product does already exist (with a hand crank).
The buffer battery is needed because phones generally don't like having variable voltage/current to charge from. They normally choose what speed they wish to charge at (depending on charger type), and if they can't draw their desired current and the voltage drops then they stop charging entirely.
Also, humans generally expect a crank to have constant torque. Whereas if you wanted constant charge power, then the faster you crank the easier it gets, and conversely the slower you go the stiffer it gets, which is very unintuitive.
By using a buffer battery, you can solve both problems. And users can choose to crank faster to charge the buffer quicker, which is what humans expect.
I don't doubt you can generate ~100 watts cycling forward for hours. But the approach this system uses is that you need to cycle backwards. As far as I know, that's pretty annoying way to move your legs.
Homelessness is a serious subject, especially in a city like London. The assumption that the homeless masses all have access to a powerbank, or a wall socket in one of the cities most notorious for class boundaries, is rather coarse.. perhaps you might at least think of it as more of a survival device for those who are using their bicycles to get far, far away from the grid ..
Plenty of locations that used to be BT phone boxes were replaced with pillars featuring WiFi and USB charging. Is this not pretty widespread?
This device seems a bit.. daft. Renting a Santander cycle costs 1.65 GBP. Add the high energy food required to supplement your diet after a 30 minute ride and this is looking closer to 3 or 4 quid for a phone charge, and that's before considering where the homeless person is going to securely stow their belongings while cycling. Luggage storage in Victoria is 5 GBP for 3 hours..
It does not help homeless people or anyone to suggest they should break the law.
This device that uses bike chains is a bit cheeky but it is a smart idea and it should be legal, or at least not a crime (ianal). So nice, clever hack.
I for one live in fear of the storm trooper squads that come after you plug your charger into an unattended wall socket.
In my major Northeast US city, there are wall sockets on the outside of most buildings (if you know where to look), on every car of the subway/bus, in public concourses, etc.
"While most homeless people own a phone, Talbot conducted interviews with people sleeping rough across London and found that many struggle with finding a place where they can actually charge the device."
So apparently at least part of the homeless disagree with you.
Most places that are available to you and me aren't necessarily available to homeless people and some modern cities are getting more and more hostile architecture built to make life harder for homeless people.
It might be a niche thing (it's a gradschool project after all), but it's pretty cool way to exploit things that are not supposed to be available for use.
Not my experience in London tbh. It’s hard to find a power outlet somewhere that you don’t need to pay some sum of money to spend time in. Which makes it a problem for the homeless.
Maybe the strategy should be more to incentivize people to live more safely and comfortably in nature and less in their boxes of inordinate consumption.
Homelessness could become a good thing, if we get our tech right.
(Disclaimer: Tree-hugging hippy who believes we should be dropping Kelly Kettles, not bombs..)
These are people with a life and feelings and needs just as much as you. If you were in a rough situation and needed some help, how would it feel to have people dehumanise you with comments like this as if you’re some sort of pest and just want you to go away somewhere else instead of helping?
Hours of blood-curdling screaming in the middle of the night, waking up people who are trying to get sleep before going to work. But I can tell from your tone that you've already decided you don't care about anything the homeless might do to other people.
Considering there's negligible tension on the chain when pedalling backwards it's not really going to have much of an effect. And the added gear ("jockey/pulley wheel") is plastic.
Nice prototype, but it doesn't actually work does it?
Turns out that to transfer any significant torque (and therefore energy), you need either a larger gear, or a larger subtended angle, or a higher chain tension - and ideally all three.
Since this device has none of those, I can be pretty confident that even after hours of pedalling, you won't have a charged phone. In fact, the video even shows the chain jumping showing that the generator gear isn't turning.
That seems like par for the course in this day and age. A nice sentiment and idea, but it doesnt actually work. But that doesn’t stop it from going on the cv and a small marketing push about it.
Your comments about the gear size, etc. are interesting, but I don't see how they're strictly necessary. Can you explain? For example, can't an arbitrarily small gear work as long as the force contributing to the torque is sufficient? And isn't the force a product of the driving force (human leg/crank) and the load on the generator? And we can't see the load on the generator, so there may well be step-up gearing and high-flux motor inside the housing?
From my spreadsheet, this project looks plausible, but please feel free to add comments to it as you see fit.
My spreadsheet's calcs indicate an average power of about 25 Watts to reach the 25 minute charging time claim. Note that average humans can easily sustain 100 Watts.
I have assumed an iPhone 12 battery as that's the first that came up when I searched: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ihpone+...
As far as the shaking chain, note also that the device base is shaking so we can not directly infer the cog idler pulley-cum-prime-mover is not also moving.
In my experience with human-powered generators, the real obstacle was getting people to relax and focus and do nothing for longer than 2 minutes.
> gear size, etc. are interesting, but I don't see how they're strictly necessary. Can you explain?
Simple: The chain won't grip the gear.
Gears must be designed such that the chain never intersects the gear (two things can't be in the same place at the same time). That precludes 'hooks' on the teeth of the gear, and means that the face of the gear tooth must be perpendicular to the chain link. However, that means that at any other angle, the angle of the tooth is providing a small component in a direction that pushes the chain off the tooth.
When your chain is contacting many teeth, this force gets smaller by 1-cos(angle between teeth) per tooth - so after about 6 teeth or so, the force is so tiny as to be irrelevant. However, in OP's design there is minimal tension and only 1 tooth touching at a time, so the chain will jump off the teeth.
There is a huge and very old field of chain and sprocket design, the details of which I am not very familiar, but I do know the basic rules of "some non-zero tension", "bigger subtended angle=better" and "engage as many teeth as possible".
(other interesting chain facts: the invention of the bicycle was enabled by the invention of sufficiently good chains. chains are better lubricated by grease not oil. chain wear gets exponentially worse, not linearly. centripetal force limits fast moving chains. )
Yes, at least here in Australia there are a lot of libraries, churches and other public places where charging is available. Rather than expecting those without homes to pedal for basic access to services, access to basic infrastructure like charging should be expanded – and dare I say, be bold and actually make housing available to all people.
Having to stay there while charging would still be a hurdle. Do they typically offer e.g. code-locked charging cabinets where you can leave a phone or power bank, or power bank swaps where they would lend (or give) away standardized power banks that could then be exchanged for full ones when empty?
It's incompatible with getting other stuff done, like hiking to the gym for a shower then going to work then going to the food bank. Just because someone is homeless doesn't mean they don't have anything better to do than sit around for hours watching a number go up.
Sure, but everyone sacrifices time for necessity sometimes. In a library, you can sit and read for the 30-60 minutes you're there, use a computer, research whatever's important to you or take in some fiction to relax the high levels of stress you have. No different to people filling time commuting, picking up kids, waiting in line somewhere, etc.
I also would expect charging at the gym or work for those who have access would be a problem.
While I applaud the intent to bring the issue of homelessness to the forefront of the media, I feel like this project is more about gaining self attention for the project rather than solving the issue all together. The ~20GBP for the 18650 or 27500 batteries, the probably ~5GBP of the PCB needed, ~15GBP for the chain hardware and magnets, you are looking for a >40GBP to put this together, you can today get a <10GBP USB hand crank, and you don’t have to use the words “hack” and name “Santander” on your blog. I’f there was intent, then a volume buy, with a go-fund-me campaign, you can get them hand cranks for <2GBP in volume, and it would have had a real impact… I hate it when serious matters are used just to draw attention to one self, IMHO.
It’s from CSM, a fairly well regarded art college, so you are right on the money.
You see a lot of interesting projects like this come from art colleges - technically quite neat, with a “social message” or theme, but usually not going to translate well to the real world.
That being said. I could see myself actually using something like this in a pinch.
Which I think is 100% ok for art or tech school or project. They are not supposed to be experts in social help, sociology or whatever. They kinda lack training for that. The are supposed to show practical skills and come up with an idea of a project that would demonstrate them.
Are any of those actually effective for charging a phone? I used to have a hand cranked radio, but radios built for this only need a minuscule amount of power. Does anybody have real experience using one of these to charge a phone? How long does it take?
iPhones charge at 20watts. Doing that sustained by hand is probably fairly tiring but would be trivial wattage for say biking. From my experience the hand crank radio's would be pretty futile for charging a phone. There are some charging specific devices out there that can generate decent power.
There was a video a few years ago in which a professional cyclist is connected to a generator (bike included) and their continuous power output was around 100 W which they could maintain for a few hours. But it would be unreasonable to expect this amount of exertion from an untrained person.
Edit: weeeelll. I'm either thinking of a different one or completely messed up the numbers and duration: https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ
Yeah, pro cyclists can put out 400W for an hour. The 20W it takes to charge a phone is less effort than walking, it's honestly the bare minimum a grandma puts into a bike to get it to roll down the road.
Assuming my exercise bike wattage is accurate I think most decently fit people could average 100 watts for an hour with a bit of sweating but not like, full on panting. 20 watts is low enough that it's awkward to generate that little power in terms of speed/resistance.
I have an emergency radio / USB-C battery combo thing with like 5000mah and the math on the hand crank says I'd have to crank it continuously for like 48 hours to charge it. It's completely useless. I'd die from exertion just trying to charge it if I was stranded.
You don't need to crank the whole 5000mAh, you just need to crank enough for your phone to get a phone call or two out, and that's assuming the battery wasn't already charged prior.
I mean, sure, the person you replied to wouldn’t but if this was your primary method of charging your device, as the original comment suggested, then you would need to crank the whole 5000mAh. Multiple times, since I assume you’ll want your phone charged more than twice.
5000mAh battery at 3.7V nominal has roughly 18-20Wh of juice. Your crank would only be putting out 400mW of power if it truly took 48 hours to charge.
Internet seems to think most hand cranks can output somewhere between 5-15W, which would mean you'd only take 1.3-4 hours to fully charge said pack. Plenty of juice in an emergency situation, and certainly plenty for a phone call or something. Maybe that's a big giant crank thing though, and the tiny plastic crap ones only put out the wattage you're talking about though.
This is the same mistake the OLPC people made. When you're broke and struggling to feed yourself, you aren't going to waste precious calories cranking to charge a battery. You're going to bum enough off someone to have a calorie-rich drink while you charge in a coffee shop or find a public outlet you can sneak some juice off of.
I met a number of people involved in OLPC and every single one of them was an insufferably smug tool with a massive white-savior complex. Kids in Africa didn't need a hand-crankable laptop. They needed clean water to survive infancy, light to be able to study by, and to not be captured and turned into soldiers.
>every single one of them was an insufferably smug tool with a massive white-savior complex.
Silicon Valley nailed it.[1]
These tech people thinking they're "saving Africa" with crankable laptops are just like the former Crypto pundits you'd see roaming around here in the comments preaching how crypto will save Africa from poverty.
Don't tell me you have never used a hand crank. The bicycle dynamo thing is stupid, but at least the expectation is that you charge while you are on the go without thinking too much about it. It makes your bicycle slower, but that is about it. Meanwhile your idea requires hours upon hours of doing nothing but handcranking.
> the expectation is that you charge while you are on the go
Not at all, according to the article text. The expectation is that you will pedal backwards for 25 minutes on a stationary bike, without paying to remove it from the docking station. And slightly further down it says the colour is chosen to match the bike "so as not to attract attention". Doesn't really add up.
Homeless people are known for having so much free time and energy that an hour of pedalling is a better solution than the two cents of wall power needed to charge things while they sit and correspond with potential employers, deal with paperwork, pay bills, figure out their kid’s school plans, and working out how to keep their healthcare without a full address.
I dunno… this “idea” feels so ignorant that it’s basically offensive.
I'm American so as ignorant as I'm sure this sounds... Are the people who become homeless in London doing so for significantly different reasons than over here? Because most of the homeless in my city (a fairly large California coastal) aren't significantly engaged in any of the things you're alluding to and frankly would probably be happier with a bike that charged their phones since the ones who aren't just living in tents outside the 'clinic' typically roam the tourist districts to pan handle. The main issue I imagine that might be inconvenient for them is the ease of theft.
I’m not sure of the demographics in your region but are you sure your perception of homelessness is correct? Or is it just a bias where you only see the ones who aren’t busy trying to dig out?
Most of the homeless in my city migrated here from outside of the city (and often State) to come here for our weather, services, and lax attitude towards drug use as far as demographics go. We're a navy town so there's also a tragic sub-group of veterans with mental health issues but the bulk of our homeless (we actually use the term "transient" as side context) don't fall into this category and mainly came here for the conveniences. I'm sure there are some who are trying to "dig out" as you say but it's certainly not most of them and for the ones who aren't trying to do so a bike with charging capabilities would be both a mobility boost (again assuming theft wasn't a concern) and a general utility boost (smartphones are largely ubiquitous amongst our homeless and are actually extremely valuable as tools since they're both navigation aids and access points for online services offered to them in my city). This is why I was asking what the demographics of the homeless in London are like since if they resemble our population then the bike wouldn't be such a terrible idea (but I'm also still unsure about the practicality since while some of our homeless ride bikes most get around via public transit and so just putting chargers on busses would probably be more pragmatic as a service to them).
I don't know the demographic breakdown of London homelessness, but I do walk around the city (of Westminster) a lot and have read the Big Issue a fair bit. There are all sorts of reasons to be homeless in London, including (in no particular order):
Obviously there is overlap between these, and some can cause the others. Also note that being 'homeless' does not just include literally sleeping on the streets (as many do) but also staying in temporary hostels, couch-surfing, and so on.
London is not the sort of climate that it is comfortable to sleep outside, even in a tent. It is difficult to imagine many people that would be 'transient' on the street given any alternative options. Of course it is possible, and there are long-term homeless people who might even plausibly enjoy some of the benefits of the 'freedom to live under a bridge', but I _suspect_ the majority are in a very bad place and want to get out of it.
Every aspect of your statement is false and you can't have gained this understanding from speaking to actual homeless people in California. California homeless are from their local area and they just ran out of money. This has been demonstrated over and over again. For example, of Alameda County's 10k homeless individuals, 82% were living in Alameda County before they became homeless and 96% were living in California at that time. They don't come to our county for the services, because there aren't any. The idea that homeless people migrate around to find good weather and free stuff is just propaganda. No significant subpopulation of homeless people does that.
None of the homeless people in my town seem to be from here. They don't speak with the local accent; they speak with the generic London "druggie" accent. (The local accent is quite easy to recognize)
This is a nicer town than London, generally; at least, it is in the centre, where the homeless people concentrate. The police seem very tolerant of homeless tent-dwellers. There was a small encampment around the corner from where I live, camped directly outside the courthouse and opposite the police station (!), for about two months. I found them rather intimidating - they were very shouty.
The statistics I've seen (on California[1]) suggest that homeless folks are generally locals, not migrants? But I agree that just providing some usb ports on public transit (likely also in stations or at stops) would be a low-cost/high-benefit approach. For human-powered approaches, I will say that old OLPC hand crank was a good design, since it clamped to a table or railing, which allowed for clever 'hacks' like hoisting a bucket or water bottle and letting the weight coming down turn the shaft [2]. Still less practical than just plugging in, to be fair.
Not an EE, but my gut says "modular, replaceable" would be essential. As they wear out, have drinks spilled in them, etc. someone with only hand tools should be able to pop them out and slot in new working ones (probably with minimal security bolts, just to keep bored riders with pocket screwdrivers taking them apart).
> so a bike with charging capabilities would be both a mobility boost (again assuming theft wasn't a concern) and a general utility boost.
From article:
> Talbot's product takes advantage of the fact that, without having to pay to take out one of these bikes, their chain will still move when pedalling backwards.
There is no mobility boost. It warms my heart someone is trying to think of ways for the homeless to recharge any portable electronics, but I think buying a solar panel, battery, charge management electronics would be of more immediate help.
Regarding the issue of theft, a sort of exoskeleton with styrofoam panels to stay warm during winter, and a heat exchanger to keep not just temperature but also inside humidity under control would be very welcome. But it seems not much research is going into housing in the shape of a suit, nor in clothes designed to be worn for very long durations at a time.
I'm all but certain you're certain you're incorrect.
I would invite you to do a ride along with your local police, local EMS / Fire Rescue if allowed, to develop a more informed opinion, as they spend a significant amount of time interacting with the homeless population.
I'd imagine panhandling gets money that the desperately need. It's not an idle activity that can be replaced by "generate electricity" at no cost to them.
Note that the person who made this actually interviewed homeless people about whether or not this was a problem beforehand. Whether that extended to running the idea past them to see if they thought it was helpful as well, I don't know, but that he even bothered to listen in the first place makes it stand out.
“Hey, person discarded from society! We don’t think you’re worth housing, or having reliable access to electricity. Instead, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and pedal your way to being a participant in the rat race!”
Feels like the better solution would be to add public charging outlets (Fast food restaurants, malls,…) to OSM or some app showing them. Would also be a lot faster than paddling around and sweating.
> Talbot's product takes advantage of the fact that, without having to pay to take out one of these bikes, their chain will still move when pedalling backwards. This can power up the tiny pedal-powered generator contained in the portable charger.
The electricity generated in the process is then stored in MyPowerbank's internal batteries, with around 25 minutes of pedalling equating to one full phone charge.
There is approx zero chance that you can get a homeless person to do labor for 20 minutes, let alone the 2-5 hours this would actually take. By and large homeless are in such despair that they won't invest in activities that will benefit them in the future.
If by some miracle this actually took off and all the bikes were now in use by homeless, non-paying customers, bike rental companies would implement blocking measures so they could actually get revenue.
If the author used his resources and energy deliberately to get even a single homeless person back on track through conventional means, it would have a better impact on the world than this which is probably a net negative, all things considered.
> There is approx zero chance that you can get a homeless person to do labor for 20 minutes, let alone the 2-5 hours this would actually take.
And yet homeless people do labor. In fact routine living often requires much, much, much more labor when homeless, than when housed.
They even have jobs. I worked when I was homeless (but was fired when they found out). That was long ago. Since then it's more difficult to find work; job portals erased most job opportunities. Of the few folks willing to give you work, you have a segment who take advantage and act in bad faith.
They didn't offer one. It came out I was living in my car and was told that day I wasn't needed any longer.
When I started working there I was still living in the home I was born into. One day my mom, sister and I were suddenly given 2 weeks to vacate (it's complicated).
I think you have a limited of view of what being homeless is actually like?
Walking around 30 miles a day (because there is nothing else to do and, sometimes, you may otherwise freeze to death) with your belongings in a backpack isn't exactly easy.
I have an emergency radio with crank for power outages. I know it probably takes a lot of cranking to charge a phone, but I think that would reduce complexity and make it more universal than having to occupy a specific kind of bike sharing bike
Or you can do what NYC did and (sell the right to) put USB charging ports on every other block or so. In that case, you just have to source USB condoms instead of a whole rigamarole involving pedaling and stuff.
I think they’re pretty cool. Privacy issues are important, but access is also important! It feels like the future. Like drinking fountains for information.
Most homeless people in the UK will be aware that they can charge phones in any public library.
Also, most will have access to some kind of facility where they can also do stuff such as charge phones, have a shower and do laundry.
If you present to the local authority as homeless you will usually be directed to a local charity that has these facilities. You will, likely, stay homeless but there is some basic help out there.
> Most homeless people in the UK will be aware that they can charge phones in any public library. ..have access to some kind of facility to charge phones, have a shower and do laundry.
You describe a different universe from US homelessness. Here there might be a tiny bit of religious outreach but the public (therefor public services) tends to lean toward hostility.
Homeless I've encountered are usually well fed and clothed and they always have cell phones. This includes the registered sex offenders with face tattoos.
It sounds like you encounter a fairly exclusive group of homeless folks. It's certainly unusual that they id themselves as sex offenders to you.
I've been interacting with the local homeless community for over a decade. My ex is one.
The only thing most of them are is homeless.
Most have cell phones for a little while - until it gets lost or stolen or broken. Most are fed regularly sometimes and not other times. They have varying degrees of shelter on an irregular basis.
Few are well clothed in a way that wouldn't be a concern in a job interview (or going inside a market or library). Few have a reliably usable address.
In short, they fairly well represent unhoused Americans all over.
even then, at least in canada the average library will have phone chargers available to borrow, i cant imagine it being that different south of the border
Most of the population in general here isn't getting to a library without a car. Under 1% live in walking distance. There's a limited bus system that reaches one library.
Generally speaking, only housed folks are getting to the library.
For unhoused that do make it to the library, must run a strong risk of having the police called on them.
I see a lot of people who are down on this. I read the comments before the article, which was perhaps a mistake, because I went into the article thinking this was a lot less clever than it actually is.
This is neat. This may not be The Most Practical Solution, but the idea of having a thing that you can carry around and turn local bikes into power generation seems like a perfectly-reasonable invention for me.
We're talking about helping the homeless. They don't need the minmaxxed optimal solution. Not every homeless person may have access to a power outlet-- I don't know who wouldn't be able to move enough to pedal a bike but not enough to get to a public library, but that's really /not the point/. There are a lot of reasons that people end up homeless, and they can cause some really spotty/unreliable behavior.
There's nothing wrong with adding ideas/solutions to the mix. There's no need for a concept like this to replace other solutions. We can use all the viable solutions at the same time.
Just because you become homeless, doesn’t mean you lose every single item you own.
A phone is one of the more useful/valuable possessions for a homeless person - you need some kind of internet/telephone device to engage with the services that can help you, for navigation, etc etc
I volunteer with homeless youth. A solar power bank with a light is $20 and a person experiencing homelessness can have it delivered to an Amazon locker. What this idea misses is that people experiencing homelessness are frequently time starved just trying to hustle in their day - getting to a minimum wage job without a car and the like.
This is interesting as a gimmick, but it seems wildly impractical compared to charging a power bank from an A/C outlet in a public place. I expect most homeless people would rather have a power bank that's larger or cheaper than one that can charge from bike pedal power.
This seems about the most ridiculous way possible for a homeless person to charge a phone.
If phone charging is really something that's been overlooked by the many organisations trying to help the homeless already, it's just a matter of providing a space with mains power and a few chargers - maybe homeless shelters, churches, or community centres, and letting people know where+when this is available.
But I'd imagine that this is already a thing, and there's not really a need for silly contraptions?
(Then try to draw attention to the problem of phones with non-user-replaceable batteries, as the world has a vast supply of inexpensive older phones, but they're no use to anybody if the battery doesn't hold a charge...)
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 301 ms ] threadPlus, it gives the bikes utility when they're not being rented, since the rental bays often take up space in areas accessible to the homeless, its also quite convenient for the target users.
I'm quite surprised it can be built for £3, unless the battery is incredibly small.
I have often wondered what sort of conversion it would take to use an AK47 and a box of ammo to drill a well/pump water, instead of suppress human beings.. transformative technology is highly interesting, don't you agree?
>I'm quite surprised it can be built for £3, unless the battery is incredibly small.
Herein lies the rub - can the homeless build these things for £1 a piece, somewhere in London?
Because if the answer is more oil-based traffic across the worlds oceans to get these things made, I'm afraid the irony of the builder/user distinction is rather unfortunate...
But the market for something like that is not limited to the exact specific population of homeless in London. A thing like that could be produced in the volume necessary to get economy of scale, simply by not being limited to one city and a single particular model of bike, or even limited to the homeless for that matter.
If you don't understand that, then you are in a poor position from which to call anyone else dumb.
Yet on a single hand crank, even 20 watts and you'll get tired pretty quick.
Part of that is that leg muscles are bigger. Part of it is that you're used to walking or standing for long periods of time. Part of it is that with a dual crank you aren't putting useless effort into holding the device up and holding the weight of your own arms up.
End result: Hand cranks are useless unless you only need tiny amounts of energy out of a human.
This is definitely more about the message, but actually, if a person could pedal pretty hard for like a half hour and get a couple charges out of it, that doesn’t see too impractical (ignoring the obvious objections, like usually coffee shops will let you get a little charge).
It could be a nice camping accessory. I bet a product already exists.
The buffer battery is needed because phones generally don't like having variable voltage/current to charge from. They normally choose what speed they wish to charge at (depending on charger type), and if they can't draw their desired current and the voltage drops then they stop charging entirely.
Also, humans generally expect a crank to have constant torque. Whereas if you wanted constant charge power, then the faster you crank the easier it gets, and conversely the slower you go the stiffer it gets, which is very unintuitive.
By using a buffer battery, you can solve both problems. And users can choose to crank faster to charge the buffer quicker, which is what humans expect.
This device seems a bit.. daft. Renting a Santander cycle costs 1.65 GBP. Add the high energy food required to supplement your diet after a 30 minute ride and this is looking closer to 3 or 4 quid for a phone charge, and that's before considering where the homeless person is going to securely stow their belongings while cycling. Luggage storage in Victoria is 5 GBP for 3 hours..
“I was charging my phone :(“
It does not help homeless people or anyone to suggest they should break the law.
This device that uses bike chains is a bit cheeky but it is a smart idea and it should be legal, or at least not a crime (ianal). So nice, clever hack.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstracting_electricity
In my major Northeast US city, there are wall sockets on the outside of most buildings (if you know where to look), on every car of the subway/bus, in public concourses, etc.
"While most homeless people own a phone, Talbot conducted interviews with people sleeping rough across London and found that many struggle with finding a place where they can actually charge the device."
So apparently at least part of the homeless disagree with you.
It might be a niche thing (it's a gradschool project after all), but it's pretty cool way to exploit things that are not supposed to be available for use.
Homelessness could become a good thing, if we get our tech right.
(Disclaimer: Tree-hugging hippy who believes we should be dropping Kelly Kettles, not bombs..)
How do they not affect you?
Turns out that to transfer any significant torque (and therefore energy), you need either a larger gear, or a larger subtended angle, or a higher chain tension - and ideally all three.
Since this device has none of those, I can be pretty confident that even after hours of pedalling, you won't have a charged phone. In fact, the video even shows the chain jumping showing that the generator gear isn't turning.
I do like the base idea of "why not just use the machines that are already idle everywhere" though.
BTW, I respect your project at https://omattos.com/2022/06/19/gym-power.html
I have also worked with human-powered generators (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huYJa2Du57g) and made a quick feasibility spreadsheet on the MyPowerbank at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X39ZgL86tmemdYv0r1Jg...
From my spreadsheet, this project looks plausible, but please feel free to add comments to it as you see fit.
My spreadsheet's calcs indicate an average power of about 25 Watts to reach the 25 minute charging time claim. Note that average humans can easily sustain 100 Watts. I have assumed an iPhone 12 battery as that's the first that came up when I searched: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ihpone+...
As far as the shaking chain, note also that the device base is shaking so we can not directly infer the cog idler pulley-cum-prime-mover is not also moving.
In my experience with human-powered generators, the real obstacle was getting people to relax and focus and do nothing for longer than 2 minutes.
Simple: The chain won't grip the gear.
Gears must be designed such that the chain never intersects the gear (two things can't be in the same place at the same time). That precludes 'hooks' on the teeth of the gear, and means that the face of the gear tooth must be perpendicular to the chain link. However, that means that at any other angle, the angle of the tooth is providing a small component in a direction that pushes the chain off the tooth.
When your chain is contacting many teeth, this force gets smaller by 1-cos(angle between teeth) per tooth - so after about 6 teeth or so, the force is so tiny as to be irrelevant. However, in OP's design there is minimal tension and only 1 tooth touching at a time, so the chain will jump off the teeth.
There is a huge and very old field of chain and sprocket design, the details of which I am not very familiar, but I do know the basic rules of "some non-zero tension", "bigger subtended angle=better" and "engage as many teeth as possible".
(other interesting chain facts: the invention of the bicycle was enabled by the invention of sufficiently good chains. chains are better lubricated by grease not oil. chain wear gets exponentially worse, not linearly. centripetal force limits fast moving chains. )
This seems more like an art project than a practical solution.
I also would expect charging at the gym or work for those who have access would be a problem.
Also yes, it’s an art project by an art student at CSM (an art college).
There’s nowhere near enough drop in daytime places to charge a phone or access internet or get help with paperwork, etc.
there also a shortage of places that will let you open a mailbox/use the address to get postage.
You would be amazed at how much difference it makes being able to receive a letter at an address - it’s vital for a lot of services still.
You see a lot of interesting projects like this come from art colleges - technically quite neat, with a “social message” or theme, but usually not going to translate well to the real world.
That being said. I could see myself actually using something like this in a pinch.
Are any of those actually effective for charging a phone? I used to have a hand cranked radio, but radios built for this only need a minuscule amount of power. Does anybody have real experience using one of these to charge a phone? How long does it take?
https://www.amazon.ca/Powerhouse-Watt-Hand-Crank-Generator-Q...
Edit: weeeelll. I'm either thinking of a different one or completely messed up the numbers and duration: https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ
Internet seems to think most hand cranks can output somewhere between 5-15W, which would mean you'd only take 1.3-4 hours to fully charge said pack. Plenty of juice in an emergency situation, and certainly plenty for a phone call or something. Maybe that's a big giant crank thing though, and the tiny plastic crap ones only put out the wattage you're talking about though.
this was the point of olpc?
Silicon Valley nailed it.[1]
These tech people thinking they're "saving Africa" with crankable laptops are just like the former Crypto pundits you'd see roaming around here in the comments preaching how crypto will save Africa from poverty.
[1] https://youtu.be/ETi_UpG8D_k?si=2EgVaMer-_bFOg2M
Not at all, according to the article text. The expectation is that you will pedal backwards for 25 minutes on a stationary bike, without paying to remove it from the docking station. And slightly further down it says the colour is chosen to match the bike "so as not to attract attention". Doesn't really add up.
I dunno… this “idea” feels so ignorant that it’s basically offensive.
* Drug/alcohol problems * Domestic abuse * Prison * Mental problems * Financial disaster
Obviously there is overlap between these, and some can cause the others. Also note that being 'homeless' does not just include literally sleeping on the streets (as many do) but also staying in temporary hostels, couch-surfing, and so on.
London is not the sort of climate that it is comfortable to sleep outside, even in a tent. It is difficult to imagine many people that would be 'transient' on the street given any alternative options. Of course it is possible, and there are long-term homeless people who might even plausibly enjoy some of the benefits of the 'freedom to live under a bridge', but I _suspect_ the majority are in a very bad place and want to get out of it.
This is a nicer town than London, generally; at least, it is in the centre, where the homeless people concentrate. The police seem very tolerant of homeless tent-dwellers. There was a small encampment around the corner from where I live, camped directly outside the courthouse and opposite the police station (!), for about two months. I found them rather intimidating - they were very shouty.
1: https://californiahealthline.org/news/article/california-hom...
2: http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/power_supply/two_awesome_ex...
From article: > Talbot's product takes advantage of the fact that, without having to pay to take out one of these bikes, their chain will still move when pedalling backwards.
There is no mobility boost. It warms my heart someone is trying to think of ways for the homeless to recharge any portable electronics, but I think buying a solar panel, battery, charge management electronics would be of more immediate help.
Regarding the issue of theft, a sort of exoskeleton with styrofoam panels to stay warm during winter, and a heat exchanger to keep not just temperature but also inside humidity under control would be very welcome. But it seems not much research is going into housing in the shape of a suit, nor in clothes designed to be worn for very long durations at a time.
I would invite you to do a ride along with your local police, local EMS / Fire Rescue if allowed, to develop a more informed opinion, as they spend a significant amount of time interacting with the homeless population.
No one's perception of the homeless in these discussions seem to take into account the person that died last week, I guess is what I'm getting at.
Most people do not know how easy it is to access a power source in most towns and cities.
> Talbot's product takes advantage of the fact that, without having to pay to take out one of these bikes, their chain will still move when pedalling backwards. This can power up the tiny pedal-powered generator contained in the portable charger.
The electricity generated in the process is then stored in MyPowerbank's internal batteries, with around 25 minutes of pedalling equating to one full phone charge.
If by some miracle this actually took off and all the bikes were now in use by homeless, non-paying customers, bike rental companies would implement blocking measures so they could actually get revenue.
If the author used his resources and energy deliberately to get even a single homeless person back on track through conventional means, it would have a better impact on the world than this which is probably a net negative, all things considered.
And yet homeless people do labor. In fact routine living often requires much, much, much more labor when homeless, than when housed.
They even have jobs. I worked when I was homeless (but was fired when they found out). That was long ago. Since then it's more difficult to find work; job portals erased most job opportunities. Of the few folks willing to give you work, you have a segment who take advantage and act in bad faith.
When I started working there I was still living in the home I was born into. One day my mom, sister and I were suddenly given 2 weeks to vacate (it's complicated).
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/bt-ad... (old article, they're in a lot of major cities now and have been for a long time)
https://www.link.nyc/home.html
It's not just USB charging, it's also pretty fast wifi.
Also, most will have access to some kind of facility where they can also do stuff such as charge phones, have a shower and do laundry.
If you present to the local authority as homeless you will usually be directed to a local charity that has these facilities. You will, likely, stay homeless but there is some basic help out there.
You describe a different universe from US homelessness. Here there might be a tiny bit of religious outreach but the public (therefor public services) tends to lean toward hostility.
I've been interacting with the local homeless community for over a decade. My ex is one.
The only thing most of them are is homeless.
Most have cell phones for a little while - until it gets lost or stolen or broken. Most are fed regularly sometimes and not other times. They have varying degrees of shelter on an irregular basis.
Few are well clothed in a way that wouldn't be a concern in a job interview (or going inside a market or library). Few have a reliably usable address.
In short, they fairly well represent unhoused Americans all over.
Generally speaking, only housed folks are getting to the library.
For unhoused that do make it to the library, must run a strong risk of having the police called on them.
Does that apply here? If you're homeless... You don't need to travel from home. You can live in walking distance?
> For unhoused that do make it to the library, must run a strong risk of having the police called on them.
For what? Using the library while undesirable?
This is neat. This may not be The Most Practical Solution, but the idea of having a thing that you can carry around and turn local bikes into power generation seems like a perfectly-reasonable invention for me.
We're talking about helping the homeless. They don't need the minmaxxed optimal solution. Not every homeless person may have access to a power outlet-- I don't know who wouldn't be able to move enough to pedal a bike but not enough to get to a public library, but that's really /not the point/. There are a lot of reasons that people end up homeless, and they can cause some really spotty/unreliable behavior.
There's nothing wrong with adding ideas/solutions to the mix. There's no need for a concept like this to replace other solutions. We can use all the viable solutions at the same time.
Just because you become homeless, doesn’t mean you lose every single item you own.
A phone is one of the more useful/valuable possessions for a homeless person - you need some kind of internet/telephone device to engage with the services that can help you, for navigation, etc etc
If phone charging is really something that's been overlooked by the many organisations trying to help the homeless already, it's just a matter of providing a space with mains power and a few chargers - maybe homeless shelters, churches, or community centres, and letting people know where+when this is available.
But I'd imagine that this is already a thing, and there's not really a need for silly contraptions?
(Then try to draw attention to the problem of phones with non-user-replaceable batteries, as the world has a vast supply of inexpensive older phones, but they're no use to anybody if the battery doesn't hold a charge...)