Ypsi Cycle-Powered Cinema update, volunteer meeting April 1

On Thursday, April 1 we’ll be meeting at the Corner Brewery in Ypsi at 6:00 PM to discuss the future of the Cycle Powered Cinema project. If you think you might be interested, please come out, have a beer, and meet the rest of the team. And feel free to encourage anyone else you know who might have an interest in bringing free, off-grid, people-powered movies to Ypsi’s Riverside Park to come out and join us.

Right now, it’s mostly money that’s holding us back. So far, we’ve taken in $193.10 (and one weird Canadian coin) in donations. We have, however, spent quite a bit more than that, having bought motors, generators, DC-AC converters and the like. At the moment, we’re probably about $500 in the hole, but we don’t intend to stop. We’re committed to find a way to make this work.

The next step is to have a real test of the concept, with a few bikes. We could either do this indoors, at the Brewery, or outside, behind the new VG Kids world headquarters, on the banks of the Huron River. The idea would be to have two bikes, equipped with generators, feeding into a deep-cycle marine battery. People, under this scenario, would begin peddling several hours prior to the movie(s) being shown, in order to store up the power necessary to project the film. In order to pull this off, in addition to what we already have, we would need the following:

One more bike stand and generator, at a cost of $399.

A 25 amp fuse and holder, at a cost of about $5.

A Blocking Rectifier Diode, at a cost of $49.

A 12 vdc Regulator/Converter, at a cost of $235.

Another DC to AC Inverter, at a cost of $100.39.

TOTAL: $788.39

We would need five more generators to pull off a big show, where people are peddling to power a film in real-time, but this would take care of most of the infrastructure that we’d need.

[These numbers are based on a few assumptions: 1) that we can find at least two bikes, 2) that we can borrow a digital projector, 3) that we can borrow deep-cycle marine battery.]

We recently submitted a grant proposal to the Ann Arbor Arts Alliance. If it comes though, this beta test could take place as early as April. If not, though, we’re going to have to initiate fundraising activities. It’s something that we can discuss at the meeting, but I’m thinking that we could ask local businesses to contribute $150 or $200 a piece toward the project, which we’re convinced would, when up and running, draw several hundred people downtown (which would be good for their businesses). There are also plans afoot to add a “donate” button to our Cycle Powered Cinema website, so that individuals can contribute online, but it’s probably still a few weeks away.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Donald Harrison and the folks at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, who have been incredibly supportive of this project to the point of allowing us to present the idea at next week’s festival, where our friend Michael Flynn, a professional builder of science museum exhibits, will be debuting his own bike-powered projector under the Cycle Powered Cinema banner… If you’re in Ann Arbor next week, be sure to check it out.

For those of you not familiar with the Cycle Powered Cinema initiative, you can find background information here and video of our first test run here.

[note: That’s an image of Michael’s Ann Arbor Film Festival exhibit accompanying this post.]