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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.
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.
Well, if you look at the photos, he WAS outside much of the time!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
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?"
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.
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.--
What seems to count for this award is a scientific investigation driven by a well-posed question. He did just that -- he tested a hypothesis by making a setup, doing repeated measurements, and drawing conclusions. Awards such as these want to encourage exactly what this boy has done. That he made a basic mistake in his setup is probably simply not all that relevant.
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.
Quote from the article: "The second model was a flat-panel array that was mounted at 45 degrees. It had the same type and number of PV solar panels as the tree design, and the same peak voltage."
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
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.
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?