Get Exercise While Gaming By Linking Your Console To A Rowing Machine

Get Exercise While Gaming By Linking Your Console To A Rowing Machine

Kids obsessed with video games may be missing out on fresh air and exercise (aside from in their powerful button-smashing fingers), a fact that’s naturally worrying to parents. If you’re crafty, though, this rowing-machine generator might be the perfect sweat-inducing addition to a living room gaming system.

Jeremy Fielding is famous on YouTube for his very specific interests. His videos center on mechanical inventions, which include things he makes and larger concepts he wants to teach people about relating to electronics and engineering.

He has lately gone viral for his video series about building a generator with two permanent magnet DC motors attached to the flywheel of a rowing machine.

You can see the outcome in the video above – a group of happy children taking turns on the rower while the others play with the Wii. Everyone gets a chance to play with the console and to work out their shoulders.

The generator is attached to two small batteries, which store a limited amount of power. It’s basically just enough to give the kids time to switch places. But if they let it go too long, the game shuts off. (A good reminder to hit save regularly!)

Fielding explains how exactly to make the machine in a series of videos, and how to make a similar set up with a treadmill. So, whatever piece of home workout equipment you’ve been allowing to gather dust in the corner, brush it off and make it the power source for something you love. It will be a great motivator for both you and the kids.


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