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13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough
An anonymous reader tips news of 7th grader Aidan Dwyer, who used phyllotaxis — the way leaves are arranged on plant stems in nature — as inspiration to arrange an array of solar panels in a way that generates 20-50% more energy than a uniform, flat panel array. Aidan wrote,
"I designed and built my own test model, copying the Fibonacci pattern of an oak tree. I studied my results with the compass tool and figured out the branch angles. The pattern was about 137 degrees and the Fibonacci sequence was 2/5. Then I built a model using this pattern from PVC tubing. In place of leaves, I used PV solar panels hooked up in series that produced up to 1/2 volt, so the peak output of the model was 5 volts. The entire design copied the pattern of an oak tree as closely as possible. ... The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!"His work earned him a Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History and a provisional patent on the design.
After all, it stands to reason that nature would have already worked out the most efficient way to collect solar energy eons ago.
Somehow I doubt that the American Museum of Natural History missed that, after reviewing him for a rather prestigious award for someone his age. There's most probably something we can't see from the picture alone, or the discrepancy was accounted for in the math.
You can't see the back side of the flat array. I bet there's another ten on the other side. I also think there are probably 20 on the tree, not 18. I can't see the whole tree clearly enough to get an accurate count. It seems to me that a young man smart enough to work out a design like this would not overlook something so simple as the number of cells in use during his experiment and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when the only proof against him is a single incomplete photo.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
If you check that image, his tree model was able to pack an increase of 80% cells in 50% of the surface area he placed in the normal flat panel model. The tree model has the advantage that it doesn't have to rotate in order to achieve direct sunlight during the day/year. So it's inventive in his being able to achieve cell density that other people haven't seemly taken advantage of as of yet.
-- Ed Bugg --You have freedom of choice, but not of consequences.--
How many of you took time at the tender age of 13 to study leaf patterns on trees to figure out how best to capture sunlight and harness it for electricity? You can crap on his science all you want, but kids like this young man inspire me and give me hope that we aren't raising a bunch of video-game addicted sluggards who take everything for granted. Hooray for science and kids who want to pursue it! We want to encourage this behavior, not nit-pick him for possible flaws in research methodology.
I've never understood this "buy the patent and bury it" meme. For one thing, if something is patented, it's published. Period. For another, patents expire. We should be neck-deep in 100 MPG carbuerators by now.