SunFlower Heliostat Brightens Homes With Up to 500 Watts of Sunlight. Heliostats are devices that reflect sunlight onto a predetermined target so that it receives more natural light – even if the sun is not shining directly above it.
They have been used to concentrate light in solar power installations and they’re a great way to provide a house with additional daylighting – but rarely have they looked as stylish as this Sunflower Home Heliostat. This Sunflower Home Heliostat has been designed to be the first affordable heliostat for the domestic homeowner. Fully powered by solar power, the heliostat shines additional light into your home while tracking tracking the sun over the course of the day. Hot Solar DIY: Make LED Lamps from Used Water Bottles. This ingenious design idea takes a typical plastic bottle – probably the single most common item recycled daily in households around the world – and makes into a host for do-it-yourself outdoor LED lights that simply screw on in place of their old plastic cap.
The bottles themselves can be filled with water to weigh them down and change the filtration of light projected from the solar unit at their top. In turn, the solar cells in the added gadget are adjustable and can be aligned to receive as much sunlight as possible. The stored daylight is converted to power the bulb at the top of the bottle at night, automatically activated by a built-in light sensor. Resistant to weather and water damage, these can be left out at all times and during all seasons to add an eco-friendly glow to a porch, patio or entryway. Designed by Miniwiz, though not yet available on the open market, these will come in a variety of colors and with long-lasting replaceable LED bulbs. Solar Bottle Lamps: Water + Bleach = 10,000 Liters of Light. Who says you can’t bottle (and distribute) genius?
Developed in Brazil to address under-illuminated slums, this simple design idea has been adopted by MIT students and expanded to other developing areas where many low-income homes lack access to either daylight or electricity. The physics of the concept are straightforward: the bottles are placed in roofs – half outside, half inside – and their lower portions refract light like 60-Watt light bulb but without the need for a power source. A few drops of bleach serve to keep the water clear, clean and germ-free for years to come.