I thought I’d share an “old” invention that you might not be aware about – the Copenhagen Wheel. In one sense, it’s a bicycle with a fat red thing on its back wheel, however the fat red thing is quite the little device. Not only does it help you pedal (little extra pedal power especially going uphill is a welcome benefit), but it also collects all kinds of various bits of data – temperature, humidity, noise levels, pollution, etc. All the data is then shared and collated in an environmental database from various users and then can help policy makers and others to come up with solutions to reduce the harmful aspects of cities. So a little extra pedal power, plus data capture = brilliant.
Take a minute to watch this little video about it:
Oh and did I mention, you don’t need to buy the whole bike, you can just by the wheel and retrofit it into your already existing bicycle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help you with dusting off your bicycle or finding it in the midst of all of the other things you have in storage, but perhaps it can be a little motivation for you to get off the couch and back on the bike!
As the Copenhagen Wheel Project website states:
“You can also make a bigger contribution through your daily commute. And share your data, anonymously, with your city. When many cyclists donate the information their wheel is collecting, your city gains access to a new scale of fine-grained environmental information. Through this, your city can: Cross analyze different types of environmental data on a scale that has never before been achieved before. Build a more detailed understanding of the impact of transportation, on a city infrastructure Or study dynamic phenomena like urban heat islands. Ultimately, this type of crowd sourcing can influence how your city allocates its resources, how it responds to environmental conditions in real-time or how it structures and implements environmental and transportation policies.”
Check out some of the pics the data begins to create:
Let’s get outside!
This article gives the light in which we can observe the reality. This is very nice one and gives in-depth information. Thanks for this nice article.