Teen uses Fibonacci sequence to make solar energy breakthrough

[baywax]

What do you think?

A teenager is about to change the way we collect sunlight.
Long Island resident Aidan Dwyer is just 13 years old and is already a patented inventor of solar panel arrangements.
On a winter hiking trip, the teen noticed a pattern in the tangled mess of branches above him. Aidan took photos of the branches that "seemed to have a spiral pattern that reached up to the sky." His curiosity quickly led him to investigate "whether there is a secret formula in tree design and whether the purpose of the spiral pattern is to collect sunlight better."
Aidan applied the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical principal found in nature, to a "tree-like stand affixed with small solar panels in the Fibonacci pattern," TreeHugger reports.
See a photo of Aidan's model here.
When Aidan compared his model's ability to collect sunlight with traditional flat-panels, the one based on tree-growth patterns won, producing 20 per cent more energy than the flat panel arrays. During winter, when sunlight is at its lowest, the tree design outperformed the flat panels by 50 per cent.

http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/images/aidan_large_08.jpg

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/good...ibonacci-sequence-solar-energy-182220725.html

 

[Hurkyl]

What do you think?

The article is baffling.

I don't mean in the sense that "how could a young kid make a breakthrough like this" -- I mean that the claims in the article don't actually seem to make sense at all. e.g. that that giant tree structure supposedly takes up less room than the flat panels.

Have you been able to find anything on the issue other than media hype?

 

[cepheid]

I have to admit that I don't get it. Surely all that matters is the total collecting area in all cases?

I suppose this could have something to do with optimizing for the variation in irradiance throughout the day, but even then I would think that the best thing to do would be to keep tilting the array to maintain normal incidence.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, certainly a panel angled more than is typical will capture more light in winter than a typical arrangement (but less in the summer...) and certainly if you stack panels on top of each other they will gather more light as a fraction of land area (as long as the sun isn't going to track vertically overhead), but do either of these actually compute to a net benefit? I'd be surprised.

And I'd be very interested in seeing how the fibonacci sequence is actually applied here.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Plants have done this for hundreds of millions of years. So I am not quite so sure what the breakthrough is, or why it's patentable.

 

[DaveC426913]

Plants have done this for hundreds of millions of years. So I am not quite so sure what the breakthrough is, or why it's patentable.

Applying a method found in nature to a technology is what a breakthrough is. :grumpy:

 

[Tosh5457]

A 13 year-old kid discovering this makes me wonder what the hell the "experts" are doing...

 

[DaveC426913]

A 13 year-old kid discovering this makes me wonder what the hell the "experts" are doing...

I do think it's blown up a little by the media.

There are many ways to increase the output of a solar array (the most obvious of which is to increase the surface area). But it's not as simple as raw output. Performance is weighed with many other factors, such as the fact that it's really easy to lay an array on the roof of a house - no costly superstructure, cheap installation, no eyesore, no maintenance problems, no collapses, failures, etc.

There's a principle he's found here, true, and there will possibly be some specialized uses for this, but it's not like we've been doing it all wrong until he came along.

 

[cjl]

I don't see how the article can possibly be correct. Surely the only thing that matters to solar energy collection is how long the panels are in the sunlight, and how direct the sunlight is. Solar tracking panels would be best, for obvious reasons, but in the case of static panels, a single optimal angle must exist for each location, and if every panel is pointed optimally, it should gather more energy than the tree (which has panels pointing in many directions). I would guess that optimal would be basically aligned parallel to Earth's axis of rotation, such that the panel experiences sunlight as directly as possible. I would have to see a lot more data than provided in that article before concluding that this is actually any kind of a breakthrough.

 

[baywax]

The article is baffling.

I don't mean in the sense that "how could a young kid make a breakthrough like this" -- I mean that the claims in the article don't actually seem to make sense at all. e.g. that that giant tree structure supposedly takes up less room than the flat panels.

Have you been able to find anything on the issue other than media hype?

So far its all media hype, repeating the original story exponentially. No study, paper, nothing... as of late.

 

[DaveC426913]

So far its all media hype, repeating the original story exponentially.

Not exponentially. Story n is simply the sum of story n-1 and n-2.

 

[Drakkith]

I like this sentence from the article the best.

It even looks nicer because it looks like a tree.

If that looks nicer then someone needs to get their eyes checked.

 

[KingNothing]

Sounds like a load of crap. I guess there really is no accountability in journalism these days.

 

[baywax]

I like this sentence from the article the best.



If that looks nicer then someone needs to get their eyes checked.

What I can figure out of this is that the array of panels would not completely block the sun from reaching the ground below them, as does happen with a bank of solar panels. Using this method there is perhaps the possibility that a "partially shaded" environment would be created by the "trees" of panels. This way, (again, perhaps) the soil under the solar array can be used for "partial shade" loving plants such as grasses for feed or others I am unaware of.

 

[DaveC426913]

What I can figure out of this is that the array of panels would not completely block the sun from reaching the ground below them, as does happen with a bank of solar panels. Using this method there is perhaps the possibility that a "partially shaded" environment would be created by the "trees" of panels. This way, (again, perhaps) the soil under the solar array can be used for "partial shade" loving plants such as grasses for feed or others I am unaware of.

Yes, which can be done with any configuration just by spacing them out more - and taking up more room. That is not an advantage specific to this design.

 

[DaveC426913]

So far its all media hype, repeating the original story exponentially.

Not exponentially. Story n is simply the sum of story n-1 and n-2.

Nothin'? Come on! That was clever!

 

[Drakkith]

Nothin'? Come on! That was clever!

Heh, I just got it...

 

[flyingpig]

That kid stole my work, I did it first. Patenting? I am suing this kid.

 

[LostConjugate]

Am I the only one who noticed there is more panels on the tree than on the house?

 

[LostConjugate]

Not exponentially. Story n is simply the sum of story n-1 and n-2.

What if story n is told to person p who tells story n+1^2 to person p+2 and p+3 who tells the story n+1^4 to persons p+4, p+5, p+6, and p+7.

 

[PAllen]

Am I the only one who noticed there is more panels on the tree than on the house?

Worse, it looks to me like the tree has 20 panel; the visible side of the roof has 10; so maybe 10 on the other side. That is just plain silly. There is almost always a good and bad side to a roof (given latitude and roof orientaion - and also possibly trees). Who wastes putting solar panels on the bad side?

 

[tiny-tim]

see http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20110822/aidan-dwyer-solar-news-gets-reality-check.htm"

 

[Borek]

Poor kid. Imagine those highs and downs he is through, just because of some adult idiots.

 

[DaveC426913]

see http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20110822/aidan-dwyer-solar-news-gets-reality-check.htm"

Cool.

Life imitates PF.

 

[LostConjugate]

A ton of people are saying he is on the right path and a bright kid. However he looked at a tree and thought that perhaps the natural form would work for solar panels without working out any probable cause, then he proceeded to build the thing without any logic behind it. Don't all kids think about stuff like this and make these crazy contraptions because it is fun to do? If we encourage this type of thinking I doubt our younger generation will grow up to be intelligent, perhaps artistic.

 

[DaveC426913]

perhaps the natural form would work for solar panels without working out any probable cause, then he proceeded to build the thing without any logic behind it.

Not sure this is fair. We don't know how much research he did. And his empirical study (in miniature) was there to do a proof of concept.

 

[tomwilliam]

Davec, you're a thinking man's comedian!

 

[sendthis]

A ton of people are saying he is on the right path and a bright kid. However he looked at a tree and thought that perhaps the natural form would work for solar panels without working out any probable cause, then he proceeded to build the thing without any logic behind it. Don't all kids think about stuff like this and make these crazy contraptions because it is fun to do? If we encourage this type of thinking I doubt our younger generation will grow up to be intelligent, perhaps artistic.

I have to disagree with this...

Sure, I believe this is agenda-driven propaganda at it's best/worst. However, I hope that more kids would follow this...

He applied the scientific method at it's core. He made an observation, asked questions, created a hypothesis, tested the hypothesis, and analyzed the conclusion. Do I think more work could be done? Sure. I agree more effort could be put in for 99.99999% of all the journal articles I read with 3-4 PhDs in the byline.

This kid is also getting off his butt and doing something. What has he learned? Heck, I don't think I even knew who Fibonacci was until high school senior year. He probably understands a little more math, a little more about solar energy, and probably a little more about basic electronics. Good for him I say! Regardless of what he did or did not accomplish.

Yes, it was curiosity. The heart of science is curiosity.

Second, people are making the judgment that this is probably not working because of their inability to "guess at it". That in itself is a violation of scientific inquiry. You can question the experiment, put doubt in the results, but it's elistist to discount what he did.

Third, the media does hype these things up, but at the same time, they enthrall and excite readers. They inspire other kids to make the same kind of observations. They make the everyday average joe say, "Hey, I too can make a difference. There are still things that don't require millions of dollar to do, I just have to be smart and I just have to ask the right questions."

Finally, if anything hurts the STEM fields more, it's the naysayers. It's the people who discourage young people from thinking out of the box. It's the people who trivialize innocent science. This kid, to me, is a diamond in the rough. He needs to be mentored, nurtured, and encouraged and one day he may develop very culture/world changing technology (if he hasn't already).

A comment about the article, it does seem plausible to me that he found a way to optimize solar array configuration. Is it a monumental leap? Probably not. Incremental contribution, possibly. It's this kind of out of the box thinking that advances science. Many times in science, he find nature had a solution all along.

Just IMHO.

 

[karen_lorr]

I may be wrong here but if the 2 arrays in the picture are the controls (of each other) surely the tree with 17 panels and the standard arrangement with 10 (41% less) isn’t a really fair assessment

 

[Hurkyl]

I have to disagree with this...

I think you're attacking a strawman. The type of thinking we need to discourage is, e.g., that a modicum of effort is all you need to do to get definitive answers.

I don't think anybody^* in the world is criticizing the kid -- he's probably the worst victim of the media's misbehavior.


*: I'm exaggerating, of course. There are probably a few counterexamples to my claim

 

[DaveC426913]

I may be wrong here but if the 2 arrays in the picture are the controls (of each other) surely the tree with 17 panels and the standard arrangement with 10 (41% less) isn’t a really fair assessment

He would merely have to apply a 41% conversion factor. For all we know he is. Probably not fair to judge him on his experimental procedure without knowing what it actually is.

 

[sendthis]

The type of thinking we need to discourage is, e.g., that a modicum of effort is all you need to do to get definitive answers.

Hopefully, you're not implying that's what I'm doing. I think there's a very big difference between saying, "Good job kid, and smart thinking" to a 13-year-old and handing out patents left and right like our government. However, just because someone spends a modicum of effort, doesn't mean there isn't a definitive answer. That article certainly was a far cry from a peer reviewed journal article, so let's not be hasty to discount his contribution.

I don't think anybody^* in the world is criticizing the kid -- he's probably the worst victim of the media's misbehavior.

Well, this is the part I took exception with the most.
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If we encourage this type of thinking I doubt our younger generation will grow up to be intelligent, perhaps artistic.

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*: I'm exaggerating, of course. There are probably a few counterexamples to my claim

There's always a counter-example to every claim. Being skeptical is important.

 

[Dale]

I think that the kid did a good science fair project type experiment. There was not a lot of heavy theoretical analysis, but that kind of analysis is not expected for a science fair level project. He did indeed prove that his specific tree-inspired arrangement collected more sunlight than the same number of panels in a specific roof-top arrangement.

I think that the only problem was that someone over-generalized the results and hyped it beyond reason. I don't know if the over-generalization was from the kid himself or from others, but either way he did an excellent science fair project.

 

[Drakkith]

Agreed DaleSpam. The kid did a great job from what I can tell, even if he was incorrect.

 

[cjl]

I think that the kid did a good science fair project type experiment. There was not a lot of heavy theoretical analysis, but that kind of analysis is not expected for a science fair level project. He did indeed prove that his specific tree-inspired arrangement collected more sunlight than the same number of panels in a specific roof-top arrangement.

Actually, no he didn't. He was measuring the open circuit voltage generated by the solar cells, which has just about no relation to their power capability. The correct way to measure it would be to apply a load to the output and measure the power, and if that was done, I would be willing to bet that the roof-top arrangement would prove superior.