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Tech

This Dad Made His Kids Manually Generate Electricity to Power Their Wii

The motors in a rowing machine make a great human-powered generator.

Gaming won’t make you super buff. Even Wii Sports and the various Wii exercise games are only moderately good for gains. If you want to turn your gaming into a kind of workout, you’ll need to hack together your own home gym.

YouTuber and garage tinkerer Jeremy Fielding hacked together a rowing machine to a Wii, and turned it into the most fun torture device for his kids. When they stop rowing, the game stops. He turned the old rowing machine he found on Craigslist into a human-powered generator, using the flywheel motors inside. By attaching it to the power supply of the Wii (plus a couple batteries that hold a charge for a moment while they swap out rowers), they’re forced to keep the motor spinning if they want to keep their game alive.

A rowing peripheral for Wii already exists, but if you’ve already got a rowing machine at home, why not power your game consoles with it and make your kids take turns getting super buff while they play Mario Kart.