Food and Farming Extravaganza

Kirkcaldy’s PeachyKeen participated in the Royal Highland Education Trust’s (RHET)  virtual Food and Farming Extravaganza.

With the Royal Highland Show cancelled due to coronavirus, RHET worked with partners up and down the country to bring online activities and videos about food and farming direct to the screens of young people.

PeachyKeen, which designs and manufactures products that utilise human movement to generate electricity, created three bite-sized videos using one of its electricity producing spin bikes to power a water vortex, hydroponics system and to show viewers how to make butter.

Andrew Bowie of PeachKeen spoke to fbm Update. He said:

“The theme of our educational videos centred on the science of water and energy in the production of food. This we achieved with the assistance of Mabel, our milking cow simulator, and our human powered activities, whilst following social distancing procedures.

“Those that participated in the event, especially children were able to interact with ‘calls to action’ during and following the broadcast. The videos are still available to view here:

1) Intro/Water Vortex  2) Hydroponics  3) Butter/Conclusion

Jen Symington – JASPER on behalf of Fife Business Matters

• Posted on August 20th, 2020 in Education, Peachy Bespoke

Royal Highland Show

As part of PeachyKeen’s community engagement outreach plan, we teamed up with the Royal Highland Education Trust. PeachyKeen launched a competition for children across Scotland to design a Human Powered device that could be used within farming and agriculture. Entries included a human powered scarecrow, sheep shearer, sprinkler system and David Adam’s winning Feed Mixer design. This was then built by PeachyKeen and showcased at the 2019 Royal Highland Show.

Following the competition, PeachyKeen had 3 weeks to prepare David’s design before it’s launch. Sticking to the PeachyKeen’s ethos of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle; the Feed Mixer was constructed using recycled materials wherever possible. To add to the educational cycle, PeachyKeen also built the Buchlyvie Slurry System – a dedication to the winning school. Along with the addition of Mabel; we were able to then demonstrate the full grass life cycle within a dairy system.

The team at RHET kindly donated ‘Dame Mabel,’ their 15 year old milking cow simulator. PeachyKeen gave her a full ‘make-over’ including fiberglass repairs and complete paint job including the PK tattoo. We like to think a red rosette would have been awarded if she had been entered in the cattle show itself!

David and his class from Buchlyvie Primary were invited to attend this years show where he was able to give a speech about his winning design. Namely, the farm implement allows an efficient blending of ingredients. This gives cattle the essential nutrients required to enhance their well-being and produce the best quality dairy or beef products. We demonstrated this through PeachyKeen’s exhibit. The feed was mixed and eaten by Mabel; she could then produce a high quality yield of nutritious milk. Additionally, she also produces slurry, which farmers could then spread back on the fields to help fertilise the land.

The David Adam’s Feed Mixer and Buchlyvie Slurry System were Human Powered. Electricity was generated through PeachyKeen’s Pedal Pods, demonstrate the nutrient cycle.

Across the four days of the Royal Highland Show, PeachyKeen were proud to welcome hundreds of visitors daily to their stand including; Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon; Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment Minister, Mairi Goureon; and Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell. Following the show, we were delighted to have a quick snippet of our team featured on the BBC’s popular television program, Countryfile.

PeachyKeen create bespoke interactive exhibits to suit a wide variety of environments. Additionally you can hire our equipment for your own event!   Get in touch to talk about your own ideas, powered by PeachyKeen.

• Posted on July 9th, 2019 in Education, Peachy Bespoke

Interactive Exhibits

Interactive exhibits are a fantastic way to engage an audience of all ages.  PeachyKeen create bespoke interactive exhibits that enable users to generate their own renewable energy!  The electricity produced can power a variety of applications including lighting, sounds, TV screens and more!

In Spring of 2019, PeachyKeen installed a brand new interactive exhibit with a Hand Crank into Beecraigs Country Park.  As the Crank is turned, human generated electricity is created!  Tailored to suit Beecraigs specific requirements, users begin to turn the hand crank, triggering lighting on the table to take visitors on a journey around the country park.  As well as demonstrating different pathways through the estate, the table lighting also indicates how much electricity is currently stored in one of our A1-Beer Boxes (this is hidden in the centre of the table).  The excess energy that has been generated powers a monitor above the table that highlights all of Beecraigs current sustainability projects. 

PeachyKeen create bespoke interactive exhibits to suit a wide variety of environments.  Our sustainable electricity production removes the need for mains power.  From Country Parks to Museums, Shopping Malls and beyond!  Get in touch to talk about your own ideas, powered by PeachyKeen.

• Posted on April 24th, 2019 in Bespoke Commissions, Education, Peachy Bespoke

STEAM ahead with young ideas…!!!

The Challenge

PeachyKeen are proud to be working in collaboration with The The Royal Highland Education Trust to present this fantastic STEAM Design Competition!

Farmers produce the food we eat and often this requires the use of technology. We are looking for you to find out a bit more about food production and use this knowledge to design a pedal powered machine linked to food production. PeachyKeen is the human energy company, who are based in Kirkcaldy, Fife. The PeachyKeen team designed and made the PeachyKeen Pod, an electricity generating spin bike. In collaboration with PeachyKeen, RHET would like to present the fantastic opportunity to design a new device which has to be powered by a PeachyKeen Pod – no mains electricity allowed, just pedal power!

You might want to design a bike that grinds wheat into flour, helps to milk a cow, shear a sheep or that plants a crop.

We will be judging the entries based on three criteria:

• The ability of your design to share a food production story
• Your creativity & innovation
• The environmental impact of your design

What to submit

It is up to you what your submission looks like. Some ideas we might expect to see are:

• A video showing an explanation of your design, including any research
• Pictures – either hand drawn or digital
• An advertisement or pitch of the final design
• A PowerPoint or Prezi Presentation — Photographs of models/prototypes made using recycled materials, construction toys or robotics kits

The sky is the limit and we definitely encourage creativity! We can accept most document, image and video file types.

You may complete multiple entries for our STEAM Design Competition however we kindly as you please only submit one at a time. To submit a valid entry, you must include the following information:

• Your name
• The name and postcode of your school or organisation
• Your age (The competition is open to young people between 8–17 years of age)
• Your design
• Details of the responsible teacher/ adult – first name, last name, and email address
• If you are trying to upload large files (over 250mb) or experiencing problems with submitting your files.

To enter: email your design to training@rhet.org.uk by 9th May 2019.

The Prize

The winning design will be taken to the production stage and hand built by PeachyKeen!
Your product will be launched at the Royal Highland Show in June 2019. You’ll also win tickets for you and your immediate family!

• Posted on March 12th, 2019 in Bespoke Commissions, Education

Human Powered Water Window

Pretext

Elizabeth Ogilvie works with a fusion of art, architecture and science, using water itself as her main medium and research focus.  The work embraces universal and timeless concerns.  Offering the public a sort of innocent pleasure at the same time as underlining critical philosophical and ecological issues.

Water Window History

The Waterwall was initially displayed in Ogilvies 1997 exhibition, Oceanus Project I, exhibited in the Mead Art Centre, Warwick.  The large scale sculptures of Oceanus Project I combine the strength and magnitude of strong, cold constructions of steel, with the intimacy and poetry of text.  Her sculpture refers to the global bodies and cyclical nature of all the water on the earth’s surface.  This is a celebration of the release, distribution, collection and evaporation of oceans, their currents, tides, mists and rain.  Water is a morphological agent that carves our terrain and defines our environments.

The Oceanus Project I exhibition offered the opportunity to not only to display a body of Ogilvie’s  work but to support an exploration of how meaning is constructed by the combination of the works between artists.  In doing so a collaborative opportunity was presented to extend an understanding of both Ogilvie’s sculpture and Tom Clark’s poetry (presented on the body of the Waterwall).  Neither artist’s work describes the others.  However both are capable of evoking the very nature of the elements with brevity and clarity.

Following the exhibition, the installation was brought back to Ogilvie’s home in Kinghorn, Fife.  The sculpture lay dormant however Ogilvie’s passion for creation lead her to become one of the most significant artists of her generation in Scotland.  Ogilvie has a compelling vision and strong track record in realizing projects of scale and critical public engagement.

PeachyKeen Water Window

Serendipitously, Andrew Bowie from PeachyKeen met Ogilvie through one of her exhibits close to the PeachyKeen workshop.  PeachyKeen shares Ogilvie’s commitment to highlight issues at the top of global agenda, thus including, one of the world’s most challenging problems; the impact of climate change on the world around us.  PeachyKeen (The Human Energy Company), designs and manufactures products that are powered by human energy.  Generating electricity by utilising the energy created through human movement.  The PeachyKeen philosophy is to symbiotically conduct its business and personal lives in a spirit of harmony and peace.  At one with our environment.

PeachyKeen envisioned extending the now called Human Powered Water Window’s collaborative roots by rebuilding the sculpture by recycling its design and applying human power to drive the movement of the water.  The Water Window is presented alongside a PeachyKeen Handcrank, the turning of the Handcrank generates the sustainable energy that powers the Water Window.  The self-sufficient sculpture aims to promote awareness and a greater consideration towards the environment through the interactive experience.

“The window is a view to the world.  Users are invited to reflect on the changes of the environment around them, highlighted through the sculpture, observing the movement of water along with the change of the light and colour.”

Ogilvie’s initial project and PeachyKeen’s reinvent of the design are both conceived in time.  Designed to enrich everyday lives and at the same time highlighting the world’s most challenging problems.  Art is an excellent communicator of contemporary issues and can address such profound topics.

Technical Specification

Dimensions:

H: 225cm (200cm Window) W: 72cm D:50cm

Materials:

Frame: Stainless Steel

Fixtures: Stainless Steel

Glass: British Standard Toughened Glass

Construction:

The Human Powered Water Window can be separated into three parts, allowing all cables and wires can be disconnected for transportation.  The PeachyKeen Water Window is suitable for indoor and outdoor installations.

Artist:

Click Here if you would like to learn more about the artist Elizabeth Ogilvie.

For sale

The Human Powered Water Window is now for sale.  This particular design is a one-of-a-kind sculpture.  Please get in touch with PeachyKeen direct if you would like more information or to arrange a viewing.

• Posted on March 8th, 2019 in Bespoke Commissions, Education

Reduce – Reuse – Recycle

Reduce – Reuse – Recycle… This is what happens at PeachyKeen! We leave Peter in our Fabrication area with some scrap metal, old hand crank parts and a little imagination…

It has the look of the 1980’s Hawkman Rocket from the film Flash Gordon (Peter maintains this is purely coincidence!) . However it is actually an Events Handcrank for our junior, Primary School participants.

As well as our commitment to help reduce our carbon footprint through developing devices that generate green energy, we also apply the “Reduce – Reuse – Recycle” approach wherever possible. This Handcrank is a prime example of how we were able to build a brand new Handcrank frame from metal which, would otherwise serve no purpose.

We’re delighted with the final outcome and can’t wait for our mini participants to start creating some Human Powered Energy!

Contact us now to find out more about how PeachyKeen could help you with a Health related initiative.

• Posted on February 14th, 2019 in Bespoke Commissions, Education

Future Flyers at Area51

PeachyKeen’s Area51 workshop was the runway for an evening visit from 1192sqn Kirkcaldy Royal Air Force Air Cadets.

To help educate and inspire the Future Flyers, we setup a number of aviation and Festive related activities.

Gabby’s Spitfire proved to be a big hit as it whizzed around Area51’s Stable room powered by an electricity generating Hand Crank.

It was also a great opportunity for PeachyKeen to test our Water Wall festooned with Christmas lighting – a larger version of which is destined for the UK’s first Human Energy Play Park next door to Area51.

The occasion was concluded with a dazzling Human Powered Laser Show in our Demonstration Room.

Contact us now to find out more about how PeachyKeen could help your organisation experience the wonders of Human power generation.

• Posted on December 8th, 2018 in Education, Events

Sustrans Summer

The summer has been filled with a series of fun filled events with a purpose on behalf of Sustrans (SUStainable TRANSport).

Beginning with the Scottish Educational Awards, middling with the South City Way Festival in Glasgow and finishing a glorious summer with Social in the Gardens (Princess Street, Edinburgh).

Mick the Dug was busy getting selfies with the Educational Awards children while they powered the Sustrans branded Micro Scalextric Velodrome.

Active travel was celebrated at the South City Way Street Fest with the Water Lot of Energy Challenge, attracting local residents of all ages.

Promoting the use of Cargo Bikes in Edinburgh with our Balloon Challenge against the back drop of Edinburgh Castle was FANTASTIC.

Contact us now to find out more about how PeachyKeen could help you with marketing your organisation with our unique fun activities.

• Posted on October 16th, 2018 in Education, Events

Primary School – Health Week

As part of it’s Health Week, a Fife Primary School tasked PeachyKeen to provide a range of fun and challenging, Human Powered activities.

The first stint involved the primary one to primary three pupils powering a Penguin and Helter Skelter…!!!

The second stint for the primary four to primary seven children required a lightness of foot to control Scalextric cars with the PeachyKeen Grand Prix Challenge.  After a few practice circuits each participant was given the opportunity to clock a fastest lap while keeping their cars on the track…!!!

PeachyKeen also provided a Hand Crank as well as Pedal Pods to ensure that everyone got the opportunity to create some energy.

Intriguingly many of the children began to appreciate the importance of their breakfast to fuel them through the day as they were able to link this with their physical performance.

Contact us now to find out more about how PeachyKeen could help you with a Health related initiative.

• Posted on June 26th, 2018 in Bespoke Commissions, Education

Hen Party…!!!

Who would have thought that during a science event our stand would prove an attraction for a Hen Party.

While the school children were having a snack break, the PeachyKeen set-up found itself hosting a party of ladies who had as much fun as the younger participants.

As it was early in the afternoon, the red liquid in the tank was water with natural food colouring and not wine…!!!

Contact us now to find out more about how PeachyKeen could add a fun as well as an educational element to your celebrations.

• Posted on May 30th, 2018 in Education, Promotional Events