We propose a device to be retrofitted to a stationary bicycle that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy to be stored in car batteries. It will be offered to students to charge laptops and similar devices. This station will be set up in a well-traveled location such as the campus center.

Our project is unique in the way it approaches the problem of educating students about power consumption. Traditionally, methods of approaching this problem such as poster campaigns or lectures can be thoroughly boring for the average student and unlikely to inspire change. By incorporating competitive exercise with the excitement of watching bicycle power turn into electricity, we will be getting people to actively participate in the educational process that normally would not. The project also gives a more accurate basis for comparison for those students because it is much easier to compare an hour of wasted energy to a day's worth of sprinting on a bicycle than to kilowatt-hours or dollars wasted from a university's very large budget. Our project is also appealing for the reason that it shows students how easy it is to generate power and shows the feasibility of a house that generates its own electricity through wind power or other alternative energy sources.

In a given year, UMass spends approximately $9 million producing and purchasing energy to power the entire campus. Due to the size and bureaucratic nature of any institution as large as ours, some inefficiency is inevitable. Although some of these inefficiencies are the responsibility of the campus power plant, many of them come to rest on the shoulders of the students, faculty, and staff of our university. In a typical student's dorm room, at any moment, there may be a television, a stereo, a computer and a light on, regardless of whether or not the student is around. This, unfortunately, is because of the lack of understanding and responsibility the students here at UMass have regarding energy consumption and its impact on the environment.