EXAM RESULTS

Aidan Dwyer 13-Year-Old Improves Solar Panel Design

 

Teenager's Design Inspired By Nature

Ever heard of the Fibonacci Sequence? Well this 13-year-old boy has, and he knows how to use it too. Aidan Dwyer was hiking in the Catskill Mountains and suddenly had a burst of inspiration regarding plant life and solar energy collection. He studied the patterns in which trees grew their leaves and then created a working prototype.
"I knew that branches and leaves collected sunlight for photosynthesis, so my next experiments investigated if the Fibonacci pattern helped," said Dwyer. "The tree design takes up less room than flat-panel arrays and works in spots that don’t have a full southern view." He also claims that this new tree-like design collects more sunlight in the shade, in winter, and during bad weather. His design is actually more compact than the standard version, so it would be great for urban areas.
So how well does this new design work? Dwyer's Fibonacci sequence solar panel stand improves efficiency by a whopping 50%! He has filed a provisional US patent and is obviously drawing interest from major players in the industry. This kid is going to be extremely rich.

 

Why Didn't Someone Think of This Before?

For those that are unfamiliar with the Fibonacci Sequence, or just forgot since learning it in high school, it is a series of numbers where the next number equals the total of the previous two. For example, the first 10 terms are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and 34. This sequence is often found in nature, and especially in plant life.
Supposedly, the brightest minds on earth are hard at work on solving the world's energy crisis. So someone please tell me why nobody thought to look at nature and try to replicate it? I suppose it does sometimes take the open mind of a child to see such a simple solution, but scientists have been working with solar panels for decades now so there's really no excuse.
The biggest reason why solar power hasn't taken over as our power source is because the cost is too high, but hopefully innovations like this could lead to a future where our cities are filled with Fibonacci solar panel trees.
- Justin Hannah, ChaCha Games and SciTech
**UPDATE (8/23/2011): So it turns out that Dwyer's science project is looking like a big bust. It turns out that the kid used an incorrect form of measuring voltage, and therefore his previously impressive data is actually useless. The tree idea may still have some merit, but likely will not yield anywhere close to a 50% energy gain.