Maha Haji was interviewed regarding the Human Powered Gym project for the show Spectrum on UC Berkeley's radio station, KALX 90.7. Spectrum is Spectrum is a thirty minute Science and Technology show airing at noon on alternating Fridays. Spectrum explores scientific research and technology development through interviews with leading practitioners at UC Berkeley and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. A calendar of local events and noteworthy news items are presented as part of each show. Audience members can contact the show by email, spectrum.kalx@yahoo.com.
February 07, 2011 by Maha
Project featured in the Daily Cal!
Team member Maha Haji was mentioned in the University of California, Berkeley's Daily Californian newspaper! Released on February 7, 2010, the article titled "Students Aim to Harness Energy From Elliptical Machines in RSF"details the current work done by the HPG team to retrofit the elliptical machines currently used in the UCB Recreational Sports Facility with new technology to convert "people power" into usable energy for powering the RSF.
Project featured in UC Berkeley Innovations Webzine
Check us out in the April 2010 Issue of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering Webzine, Innovations. Our project was highlighted in the video feature A low-wattage workout. Watch the video here:
February 26, 2010 by Maha
Come see us at UC Berkeley Innovation Expo & Energy Symposium!
Check us out this Wednesday at the UC Berkeley Innovation Expo & Energy Symposium where team member Maha will be presenting a poster on our project. The first-ever Innovation Expo will feature 80 poster presentations by energy researchers, students, and policy makers from UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and the local start-up community. The event will begin at 7:00pm and feature a keynote speech at 7:30pm by a local energy authority. 35 posters will be selected for presentation at Thursday's Symposium where they will compete for a cash prize!
Come check us out at the Undergraduate Research Poster Presentation where team member Maha Haji will be presenting her poster on Human Power Generation in Fitness Facilities.
When: Friday, December 4, 2009 from 12-1PM
When: Wozniak Lounge, 403 Soda Hall
Free lunch will provided!
November 16, 2009 by Maha
Research Update Meeting with the RSF
Today, our project team met with many of the administrative heads of the Recreational Sports Facility (RSF) to update them all on the progress of our project. So far, we have completed a feasibility study of an elliptical energy generation installation as well as a user survey of the members of the RSF. The user survey was used to gauge how the members of the RSF perceive the energy usage of different machines. The user survey was also conducted to determine how gym members would react to an installation of elliptical machines that they can use to generate energy. See the attached report for further details, graphs, and figures.
And as always, feel free to comment! :)
November 14, 2009 by Maha
Poster Presentation Award!
Team member Maha Haji was awarded a "Superior Research Poster Presentation Award" at the annual Sigma Xi International Research Conference for her poster on Human Power Generation in Fitness Facilities!
Please see the attachment to check out the poster for yourself!
September 23, 2009 by Maha
Project featured in the News!
Project team members Maha Haji and Kimberly Lau were featured in the University of California, Berkeley's Daily Californian newspaper! Released on September 24, 2009, the article titled "Exercise Machines May Supply Power for RSF" details some of the work being done to retrofit the elliptical machines currently used in the UCB Recreational Sports Facility with new technology to convert "people power" into usable energy for powering the RSF.
September 19, 2009 by Maha
RSF Energy Use Survey
Here's the email with a link to the user survey link that went out to all the members of the RSF. Please let us know what you think!
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Dear Rec Sports Member,
We've recently partnered with the Mechanical Engineering department at UC Berkeley to research energy use at the RSF. Rec Sports has done quite a bit already to reduce energy use at the RSF; most notable is the switch to more efficient - but brighter! - lights throughout the facility. You can read more about that on our PlayGreen blog.
One goal of our partnership with Mechanical Engineering is to discover further energy saving technologies that could be applied to the RSF. To this end, researchers would like to better understand how you perceive the amount of energy used by our cardio machines, and how your use of these machines might change if some of the energy generated could be captured and applied back to the energy grid.
For more information about this survey, or our partnership with mechanical engineering, please contact Rec Sports at rsweb@berkeley.edu, or the researchers at mechanical engineering at rsfenergy@gmail.com.