Using bikes to power Melbourne's Earth Hour Concert - The Future Spark vision is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by engaging and informing as many people as possible through a human powered event. Our key message is to reduce waste.
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ideas* Future Spark
Project Synopsis
Future Spark was the brain child of ideas*. The project created the opportunity to combine our core skills (project management, systems thinking, design) with our personal passions (collaboration, sustainability, loud music).
The Technology
ideas* designed and built a trailer that combined the people power of 16 bikes and solar panels to completely offset the energy requirements for Melbourne’s Earth Hour Concert in 2009.
The Vision
The Future Spark vision is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by engaging and informing as many people as possible through a human powered event. Our key message is to reduce waste.
Future Spark uncovers the mystery of energy use in a highly engaging and tangible way. By personally generating the energy for the concert we get a down-to-earth understanding of how much energy we can produce individually. We can compare our capacity to other sources such as solar, wind and fuel.
We discover new respect and awareness of the amount of energy consumed by a large event, such as a concert, and at the same time get a concrete understanding of the difference that can be made by using high efficiency technology.
Engineering Excellence Awards – Winner of Chairmans Award
September 2009 marked the Victorian Engineering Excellence Awards where ideas* received a Chairman’s Recognition Award for the Future Spark project. The award reflects a lot of hard work put in by many of the ideas* employees.
To view the awards booklet click here: VEEA booklet
Outcomes
The Future Spark Team Challenge ran from the 23rd to 28th of March 2009, and generated over 67 kWh of power, exceeding the requirement to power the Melbourne Earth Hour Concert by 12 kWh.
The unique concert attracted over 8,000 people and achieved world wide exposure, featuring a special performance by Augie March who performed the official Earth Hour song ‘One Crowded Hour’. The line-up also included artists such as Chris Cheney (The Living End), Kram (Spiderbait), Nic Cestor (Jet), Ash Naylor (Even/Paul Kelly), Renee Geyer, Paris Wells, Vika & Linda, Wally Meanie (The Meanies), Matt Cotter (Even) Bruce Haymes (Renee Geyer) to name just a few. The band was also supported by Jessica Mauboy, Cassie Davis and Axle Whitehead who donated their time to contribute to this global action against climate change.