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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.
The two aren't mutually exclusive!
so it's available in branches everywhere.
Check out this image: http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/08/The-Secret-of-the-Fibonacci-Sequence-in-Trees-3.jpg
He's used 18 cells on the tree, but 10 in the flat array. So an increase of 80% in cell numbers results in an increase of 20-50% in yield. I don't see a massive future for this.
Well, if you look at the photos, he WAS outside much of the time!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
You can just point to the oak tree as demonstration for prior art. If a tree can figure this out then it must be obvious and therefore not patentable.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You caught part of it , but even positioning of the flat array versus his "tree" skewed the results. There were times he shows where the tree was not in shade but the flat panel was fully in shade. The claims of increased efficiency ignore using panels that have mechanisms to allow them to track the sun. Plus he isn't measuring the right output of photo cells, he should have measured energy production.
As for his idea of trees, btdt http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/2807030740_25f3f2fa53.jpg
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The site is already Slashdotted. Here is the CORAL link:
http://www.amnh.org.nyud.net/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html
His idea is based upon something that has existed since ... forever. It took a bright 13 year old to see it.
Willie...
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 am more impressed by the documentation and accreditation on the website!
After all, it stands to reason that nature would have already worked out the most efficient way to collect solar energy eons ago.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintelligent_design .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
- He set the flat array at an angle of 45 degrees. Is that the optimum angle for solar panels at his latitude?
- as mentioned elsewhere, more panels in the tree array.
- The photos show both arrays being partly shaded by trees in the yard. Since the arrays aren't at exactly the same position, the amount of shade can be different. The tree array is at an advantage: more distance between the panels means that it's less likely that more than one panel is shaded by a tree branch.
Still, it's an interesting result that raises a few questions:
- in current solar panels, the wafers are connected to their beighbors to minimise the amount of wiring. But this means that whole panel drops its output below the threshold if one row of wafers is shaded by a tree branch. Maybe we'd get more energy out of an array if we connected distant wafers in series instead, so a tree branch shadow is less likely to drop the output of a series of wafers below the threshold.
- is it possible to increase the output of an array by putting parts of it at different horizontal or vertical angles?
While I agree he should have compared angled solar panels (anyone that has done anything with solar knows a panel facing south (in the northern hemisphere) will get more light than a panel laying flat, I think the idea he is going for here is for statically mounted panels such as would go on a building, not for huge solar arrays that have motor guidance etc. Besides, there is a great deal of loss from running the motors, so this could still be more efficient (although a great deal more testing would be needed to know that). Give the kid a break, at least he is trying to think - most of the other kids are playing video games which while entertaining, they don't do much for the imagination IMHO.
Get a web developer
One of the four standards by which prospective Rhodes Scholars are judged is, "energy to use one’s talents to the full, as exemplified by fondness for, and success in, sports."
Sigh.
If you look at his methodology, it's fundamentally flawed. RTFA and do your own analysis if you want.
During the "peak times" for his model, the flat arrangement was maxed out on production. Lots of lost energy. His "extended time of collection" is the sole basis for his supposed power-collection increases on the tree-like setup.
If you were to do the same experiment with PV cells that didn't max out, you'd find far superior collection from that arrangement. His "power gain" is an artifact of clipping, nothing more.
Again, FTFA: When a PV array is shaded by another object, like a tree or a house, the solar panels get backed up with electrons like cars in a traffic jam, and the current drops - UNDERSTANDING ELECTRICITY FAIL. Also, this is why people don't put their solar panels in the shade path of trees and houses.
Shade and bad weather like snow don't hurt it because the panels are not flat. - Somebody has never lived anywhere that has a real winter and seen snow-covered trees, be they deciduous or conifer or gynosperm. Deciduous trees don't gather sunlight during the winter, they DROP their leaves and enter a state similar to hibernation. That's why we have this word "deciduous" to describe them.
He sounds like a bright enough kid. But he's a kid. And it's sad that he's been given an award for some really shoddily conducted "research" by an organization that has no idea what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to power production, and were just happy someone photogenic published something cutesy about trees.
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.
Rotating the flat panel will enable it to collect many times what the tree can (which rotating does nothing for).
Many plants rotate their leaves to follow the sun (to maximize photosynthesis) and orientate them vertically during the night (in order to shade or protect them during the resting period). I know this from watching my chilli plants grow. For them this action is more profound when they are young and growing fast. Older plants seem to be much lazier and slower in orienting their leaves. Maybe leaf quantity becomes quality of it's own and following the sun movent accurately becomes unnecessary or wastes more energy.
Like a lot of other submitters, you are basing all of your whining on a couple of pictures - which do not show the actual set up of the study.
Whining incorrectly about other people's work is utter bullshit.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
He got modded down because he based his opinion on a photograph which may or may not actually show the experiment. Instead of the article which actually explains that those who are whining about what they see in the photograph are wrong.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
He even made the common bar graph mistake (more) of not starting the scale from zero, instead starting from 4v, which makes the 4.1-4.4v flat solar panel appear as if it puts out less than half of the 5.25 volt from the solar tree.
Mistake? That kid's management material!
SCIENTIFIC METHODLOGY FAIL
Sorry, but his experiment was NOT to determine a better way of generating solar power, if you RTFA it was an experiment to determine why the leaves on trees are arranged in specific patterns. If you study up a bit about photosynthesis, you'll find it has exactly the same "clipping" issues with regards to energy absorption that a cheap solar panel does. It was a pretty ingenious test to determine the (admittedly obvious) conclusion as to why leaves & branches follow the Fibonacci pattern. He probably should have tried some other tree-like but non-Fibonacci based arrangements, but he does address that point somewhat in his conclusions.
I guess you're saying there is no advantage whatsoever in determining the most efficient arrangement of cheap solar panels? They're common enough devices, so why not arrange them efficiently?
Your rant would be perfectly understandable if he got an award from the IEEE. He didn't. He got a Young Naturalist Award
So he's a nudist?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I had to straighten my father out one night regarding this very myth. I explained it thusly: When the barbarians were at Britain's doorstep during WW Deuce, and the same barbarians were trying to conquer northern Africa for the oil routes, I'm pretty sure the respective leadership was not concerned about protecting the oil industry's profits and wouldn't have ignored this mythical marvelous fuel efficient carburetor.
Wow. Twice now. SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY FAIL
Please explain how either of these arrangements answer the question the kid was trying to answer? Once again, if you RTFA, he was trying to determine why oak trees arrange their branches according to the Fibonacci sequence. He was NOT trying to create a more efficient array.
To put it simply for those posters who don't understand basic science:
Question:
Why do branches on a tree arrange themselves according to the Fibonacci sequence?
Hypothesis:
The Fibonacci sequence arrangement provides a more efficient arrangement for photosynthesis:
Experiment:
Arrange a number of solar panels according to the Fibonacci sequence.
Arrange the same number in a flat panel arrangement. (ignore the f*ing photograph, obviously they took the photo AFTER he got the award, not during the experiment)
Measure the voltage output of both over a number of months.
For a grade 7 kid, it's pretty good science. Or to put it more eloquently:
http://xkcd.com/397/
Also, great, you put a bunch of words on paper and claim that these provide a more efficient arrangement. I can do that too:
Obviously a tesseract arrangement would be far more efficient than either a dome or corkscrew arrangement. I can't believe anyone wouldn't of thought of that. Especially in grade 7.