Seventh grader Aidan Dwyer was walking in the woods during the winter, and looking up, he noticed something about the bare branches above him. They didn’t appear to be growing randomly. So he took some measurements of the angles of the branches, crunched some numbers, and wouldn’t you know it, he found that the ubiquitous Fibonacci Sequence was behind it all. He suspected there was a reason behind this. That trees were using this pattern to gather more light. ( What a great demonstration of the importance of being attentive!)
So he did an experiment. Using the same number of solar cells, he built two working models. One was a traditional, flat array will all of the panels on a single plane. The other used the Fibonacci Sequence to create the same spiraled pattern he observed in the trees. The results? The little man himself reports:
” 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!”
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/08/genius-13-year-old-has-a-solar-power-breakthrough/
This 13 year old gives me hope that with the help of the children of this world we might just be OK!
NB: Adult scientists have tested his theories and discovered that there may be some flaws in his experiment and thus his conclusions. It is important that we continue to encourage our young people to learn,play, explore, discover, create and never give up. While this experiment may not have ‘worked’ who knows what he will discover next!