To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

The “Hundred Watt Hybrid” is the culmination of a lesson Pierce Hoover is trying to teach his 13-year-old son who, like most kids, seems to forget to turn off the lights when leaving a room.

“Most people would just yell at them, nag them or charge them or something,” says Hoover. “I said, 'you know what? I'm going to prove to you that turning off the light makes a difference,’ and the difference it's going to make is us going all the way across the country on the power of that one light bulb.”

Hoover put together the Hundred Watt Hybrid, which is partially battery-powered and otherwise a bicycle built for two. He and his son Nash will spend all summer riding cross-country from Virginia to Oregon.

“It's like an electric assist bicycle,” says Hoover. “The difference is, it's a little more like a human-assisted electric. In other words, we're counting on the electric to do a little more work. We are going to help it, that's for starting out at stop lights, things like that, give us a little extra boost of speed. And just in case something goes wrong, the motor gives out or the battery gives out, we gotta be able to get home and it will work with just us pedaling.”

As long as the battery is working though, the moral of this 90-day journey cuts right down to Hoover’s thoughts on the light bulb.

“This will use 100 watts per hour,” says Hoover. “So think of it like this: If we left a light bulb burning for the duration of our trip, we'd go nowhere. If we turned that same light bulb off, that's all the power we use for the trip.”

It’s a lesson the young Nash seems willing to learn, or at least one he certainly will learn whether he likes it or not.

“I've been reading a book called ‘Power Trip’ about how the energy in this country works and how it's made, and I hope to learn a lot more about it as I progress through the trip,” says Nash.

The trip is being sponsored by General Electric and Popular Science magazine. To follow the Hoovers on their journey, which just kicked off, head over to PopSci.com/EcoTour, or you can follow them on Twitter.

As always, to learn more about programs or initiatives related to science, technology, engineering and math you can head over to a program from NY1’s parent
company, Time Warner Cable's ConnectAMillionMinds.com.