Author Archive

Power Flower: Putting Solar Power in Kids’ Hands

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

David BoyntonSEM recently finished work on one of the coolest solar power projects we’ve ever been involved with. Power Flower is a 22-foot tall interactive installation at Marbles Kids Museum that’s designed to teach children how solar power works. The entire metal structure rotates all the way around and the flower head at the top spins faster or slower, depending on which way its solar panel “leaves” are facing.

Check out the video we’ve put together to explain the project (more…)

The Potential Risks of “DIY” Solar

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

David Boynton

There’s an immense amount of interest out there from folks who want to go the “Do it yourself” solar route for electricity and hot water heating (for the difference between these two types of solar technologies, check out an earlier blog post by Graham Alexander).

I understand why: it looks deceptively simple to throw some panels on the roof and hook them up. (more…)