TEDxYouthOttawa - Philip Schleihauf - 03/04/10

Phillip Schleihauf on Unicycling across Canada to raise awareness of the plight of child soldiers.

"Six hours on the road every day leaves a lot of time to think. Unicycling for a cause for three months provides lots to think about."

While balancing an engineering education, a band, being director of the Queens University branch of Engineers Without Borders, and photography for a feature-length film, Phils favorite thing is planning big unicycle tours. He got his first unicycle when he moved to Ottawa eight years ago, and got practice by riding it to his high school, Lester B Pearson, every day. In April 09 Phil set out from Victoria BC on his single wheel to become the second person to ride the 4700km in unicycle terms 1.7 million wheel revolutions to Ottawa. The goal: raise awareness of the child soldiering by the LRA in Northern Uganda.
This summer, Phil and 22 youth cyclists will ride the equivalent of the Earth's circumference. Check out: http://www.childsoldiercycle.ca/

Presented at TEDxYouthOttawa on March 4, 2010 at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada

Video by Adam Langlois, Creative Director, For Youth By Youth (FYBY) News

TEDxYouthOttawa Organizers:
Adam Moscoe
Yusuf Malik
David Millen

www.tedxyouthottawa.org

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• TEDx
• TEDxYouthOttawa
• Philip Schleihauf
• Invisible children
• child soldier
• unicycle
• Ottawa youth

[unicyclephil]

Just in case anyone bothers to check my math: If you work out the revolutions of the 36" wheel directly, it works out to 348 revs/km, 1.6 million revs for the trip. However, unicycles wobble, and the wheel is not exactly 36". I counted the revolutions I pedaled over a kilometre based on those odometer calibration markers on the highway a few times, and it averaged 363.