August 10, 2015

Nearly every parent has thought about the idea, but it took one Israeli dad to finally create it: a system that lets kids play on the computer only after exercising.

Eylon Porat, OEM manager at The Mako Group in New York, posted a photo of a girl pedaling on a stationary bike that is located under a computer desk. The caption explains that kids have to pedal in order to unlock the computer for a certain time period, and when they run out of credits the computer locks again until they pedal enough “credits” to unlock it.

The August 3 post is a hit and has since been shared more than 3,000 times.

Of course, this is not the first time pedal power has been used for entertainment.

In 2009, a group of Israelis pedaled together to power an Earth Day concert. When they stopped pedaling, the wattage did too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ylk1zXMSTs

Pedal Power art exhibits are also common at science museums the world over.

And the French advertisement for Contrex water for the weight conscious in 2011 is one of the best examples of group pedal power.

But Porat’s post seems to mark the first time an exercise bike was converted into a locking system for a personal computer. It makes screen time suddenly much healthier.

And judging by audience enthusiasm, this one-off could soon be a real product.

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Jason Harris

Jason Harris

Executive Director

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