sLEDgehammer

sLED logo small The sLEDgehammer is an interactive light challenge that harkens back to the classic carnival Sledgehammer game. But here, the aim is to convert your peak power output to a beautiful light display. The sLEDgehammer is accurate, motivating, and visible from anywhere in the venue. It's a fun way to get your event participants thinking, cheering, and breathing. The 11' Tower and Stand are a great way to show pedalers their power.
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Rules of the game:
Pedalers must overcome the challenge phase in order to see the reward sequence. The challenge phase consists of turning on 6 levels of light. As the pedaler passes the various voltage targets, more and more lights turn on, making it harder and harder to increase the system voltage. If they beat the challenge, they win the game. Their stored energy is then used up in a dazzling display of light. No additional power is needed for the entire activity, although connecting a laptop to the circuit provides additional info that can improve the educational possibilities. To light up all five panels of LED you need to hit 375 watts of effort. After that pedalers can light up the 200 watts of halogen bulbs when reaching the highest voltage levels, for a total of 575 watts.
The Reward Animation Phase: For the reward phase, bigger is better. The reward sequence shown above has over 8000 LEDs in the 5 panels and 4 bright halogen bulbs at the top. During the reward phase the lights pulse to show the winning animation. Two Player Game: In competitive game mode, two sLEDgehammer towers and two bikes are connected to one circuit. The two players pedal vigorously in a race to light their tower first or tire first. The winner's tower displays the reward animation while the other's lights gradually drain out.
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The elements of a sLEDgehammer:
- An efficient bicycle generator, such as the Electric Fender Blender Pro.
- The sLEDgehammer circuit, which comes complete in a strain-reliefed enclosure with an Ultra Capacitor and all power cables.
- 5 colored LED panels standing to a height of 11 feet tall.
- Halogen lights at the top to win the game.
- A wide base untippable tripod stand.
The Bike: Any of our hub generators will do. But more than our other activities, pedalers on a sLEDgehammer tend to use their whole body to try to beat the game. You may benefit from additional stabilization of your generator. The Electric Fender Blender Pro, with its 3' wide stance, is particularly well-suited to this application.
The Circuit: The sLEDgehammer circuit is the brains of the operation, calculating watts as you pedal. The sLEDgehammer comes in an enclosed, strain-relieved circuit capable of handling 1500-Watt surges in power. Depending on how many LEDs you connect, you may need all that power handling. People will try to break this machine. The sLEDgehammer circuit runs cool, calm and collected even when your participants pedal their hardest. The sLEDgehammer runs on an Arbduino Pedal Power microcomputer, using the open-source Arduino platform. What this means is that you can optimize or change certain parameters to improve the activity. *** Custom Installations:
The sLEDgehammer can be installed in several ways. Our favorite method is doing large custom installs like the ones shown on this page. They can either be done for a single event or on a semi-permanent basis. Custom installations use the same components: bike, lights, and circuit; and can be tailored to your event, activity, or facility. We work with you to deign and implement the sLEDgehammer. We then provide either full installation and crew at your location, or help and guidance for your crew prior to the event. Recommendations for output devices, i.e. Light: Please see above about "rules of the game". There are two lighting segments of a sLEDgehammer -- the Challenge Phase and the Reward Sequence. To make the Challenge Phase truly challenging, you need to connect at least 200 Watts of lighting, perhaps as much as 500 for the fittest riders. The most impressive way to achieve this, and the best option for a large space is to use LEDs both the challenge phase and the Reward Sequence. This makes the Challenge Phase visible to much larger groups of people, which increases the crowd interaction. A lower-cost substitution is to use incandescent bulbs for the Challenge Phase, which has the benefit of highlighting the comparative energy efficiency of newer lighting technologies. With incandescents you can make the Challenge Phase truly challenging. Incandescents will cost less* because you need far fewer of them to achieve the Wattage goals of the Challenge Phase. (* That's also the reason they are worse for the environment.)
Costs:
11 Foot Tall Tower, Tripod Stand, and Circuit: $3600 Rentable: Yes Custom Installation: Contact us for options and pricing. Status: Made to order. Please give us 6 - 8 weeks to build custom circuitry.