HackerTube

THE VIDEO SHELF · human power output

Olympic Cyclist Vs. Toaster: Can He Power It?

Olympic track cyclist Robert Forstemann tries to pedal hard enough to power a 700 W toaster and toast a slice of bread. The film frames it as a comparison of how much energy people consume versus how much they can generate.

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Why HN readers recommended it

HN uses it as a vivid illustration of how little sustained power a human body produces, even a champion's.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
The Toaster Challenge
Topic
human power output
Format
demo
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
3
HN mentions in dataset
12
Recommendation years in dataset
2015–2023

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • Here's a neat video of an olympic cycle sprinter powering a toaster: [VIDEO] 1800 watt-hours, or 1.8 kilowatt-hours, is 20 cents worth of electricity. Using a cycle to power things makes for a neat demo, and might be good for educating people about electricity and …

    michaelt on Hacker News · 2020-10
    In Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply

  • that's not a bad sustained! Check this out: olympic (cyclist) sprinter powering a toaster! it's intense. [VIDEO]

    virtue3 on Hacker News · 2020-10
    In Use Your Bike as a Backup to Your Backup Power Supply

  • Olympic cyclist working to toast a slice of bread. Insanely impressive effort by a maximally trained professional, and he's definitely toasted. This is like a cartoon technology — the general concept is right, but the scale is just waay off... Anyway, worth the look [VIDEO] …

    toss1 on Hacker News · 2022-10
    In Mechanical Induction Cooker (2015)

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.