Deck the halls with pedal power

An historic theatre in Indiana is featuring a uniquely powered Christmas tree display in its annual Festival of Trees.

The Embassy Theatre in Fort Wayne has held the festival for more than 20 years, but never displayed a tree like this before: an alternative-energy tree whose lights are powered by a bicycle-driven generator. Visitors can help keep the tree lit by pedaling a while on a bicycle at the display, though a power pack keeps the lights on for a while even when no one’s cycling in place.

The backup plan for when the power runs low? An alarm goes off, reminding someone to start pedaling again.

The tree, decorated entirely with natural or recycled ornaments, took between $700 and $800 to create, so anyone looking to offset its cost with electric savings will probably have to wait decades to do so. Still, any gadget geek looking to recreate the pedal-tree can find another silver lining: all that pedaling could help pay off those soon-to-be-made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight.

You can find more details about the “pedaled points of light” at the Miami Herald.