Light Pipes - Week in review

After being placed on the seasonal/light/rotating team I was a little conflicted. While I wasn't too ecstatic about our constraints or the current state of the project there was something that captured my attention. For the first time in Smart Surfaces there was a high value problem worth tackling: security. Specifically, an issue that was brought up in class was that the solar panels were being taken from the roof of the power house. If the panels are gone there is no way to generate electricity and the house won't function. We toyed with a number of ideas and one solution was to place the panels indoors and pipe the light to them using fiber optic cable. Max was kind enough to let me borrow a cable and a few prisms to work on concentrating the light. 

Optic cables are so cool!

The one I was able to borrow was a singular fiber much thicker in diameter. But all optics functions the same way; the lights enters and keeps getting reflected internally until it reaches the other end and transmits out. Depending on how much you are willing to shell out the efficiencies can be anywhere from 70-99+ %. Using the borrowed cable I built a "black box" (though cardboard and not at all black) which contains a solar cell closed off from the light with the exception of what's provided by the optical cable. The solar cell is hooked up to an LED and if enough light is concentrated into the exposed end of the cable then the light will be powered. 

 

I was having a little trouble concentrating the light directly into the fiber before I had an idea. I looking into building a concentrator out of mirrors but the complexity of the project would have been too time consuming. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flashlight... As I've learned in this class why create when you can borrow. I took apart the flashlight and used the mirrors inside to direct enough white light into the cable and power the LED. Don't worry, I put the flashlight back together and it still works! It was a crazy week with a lot of outside the box (no pun intended! :) thinking but my proof of concept functioned and my team progressed the idea forward. Another successful week in Smart Surfaces, with a trip to the botanical gardens (and pictures!) to come.