Progressive Technology Project. BioPower Systems. 13-Year-Old Designs Efficient Solar Array Inspired By Oak Trees. When it comes to renewable energy solutions, sometimes nature has the best ideas.
That was 13-year-old Aidan Dwyer’s conclusion after a wintry hike in New York’s Catskill Mountains, a trip that inspired him to build a unique and effective solar array design. Dwyer observed patterns in the trees and, after further research and contemplation, realized the branches matched up with the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical pattern found throughout nature, such as in falcon flight paths, nautilus shells and ratios within the human body.
Dwyer speculated that this pattern aided the trees in photosynthesis and tested his hypothesis by building a miniature tree-shaped solar array. Energy.