Close-up of the current look of the SMIT solar ivy leaves Image courtesy PRATT
- smit ivy photo Close-up of the current look of the SMIT solar ivy leaves Image courtesy PRATT
- teresita chochran photo Teresita Cochran explaining how the solar ivy leaves work Image courtesy PRATT
READ MORE ABOUT:
The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance combined with the support of the Lemelson Foundation provides $1.5 million to student and faculty programs and ventures annually. These programs are put to great use as they allow today's youth to participate in some of the kinds of thinking that will eventually change the world...one small invention at a time.
What do you get when you combine the beauty of art with the technology of solar/wind power? You get SMIT, which stands for Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology.
SMIT was founded as a start-up company in the Fall of 2005 by brother and sister team, Samuel & Teresita Cochran. Located in Brooklyn, New York, the duo set straight to work on their first project, GROW, which is a system of solar/wind powered paneling disguised to look like ivy leaves.
This design allows for two things. One, it allows for an entire set of solar and wind powered collectors to be fitted onto almost any building, house, or bus stop with minimal installation and weight compared to the standard solar panels. Two, it offers the look of a natural ivy cover, which makes such a system not so much of an eyesore, but rather a work of technological art.
The way the system it designed to function, is by using the patent-pending combination of photovoltaic and piezoelectric technologies. In simple laymen terms, each leaf that is designed to collect solar waves from the sun and then turn it into usable electricity. They are also working on a wind powered portion of the system, which will build even more electricity from the fluttering of these artificial leaves.
SMIT has been growing over the past year by leaps and bounds, bringing chief architectural designer, Benjamin Wheeler Howes, to the team, as well as David Rose, the former CEO of Ambient Devices, to advise them. This project is just beginning to take wings and we were lucky to catch Teresita Cochran for a few moments to speak with her more about their invention:
Planet Green: Tell us a little bit about your current project Teresita.
Teresita Cochran: "It started out as just myself and my brother. It was very serendipitous actually, I was at graduate school at NYU and he was an undergrad at PRATT institute in Brooklyn. I was doing my thesis in a graduate program called the interactive telecommunications program. My brother and I were graduating at the same time in 2005 and I needed his help on my final project to work on some parts for me. We started to have a conversation and he told me what he was doing and I told him what I was doing, and it turned out that we were doing very similar things."
"His final thesis was an invention, which was incorporating two traditional kinds of technology into what he called GROW, or solar ivy. He was inspired by the ivy plants in Brooklyn. How it moved along walls, crawling up pipes and windows, and he thought, why couldn't solar panels be like that. He decided to design a solar panel that would enhance buildings. He created solar panels that looked like leaves and they were all linked together in a network and when they flipped in the wind they generated wind power. So we decided to start a business together and bring this product into existence."
PG: Have you seen a lot of interest in this idea?
TC: "We have received a lot of interest. One of the things that has happened most recently, is we were contacted by the Museum of Modern Art last year and they put together a show that was up at the beginning of the years called, Design and the Elastic Mind. The curator contacted us and asked to have our prototype in the show. The size of it was about 16 feet tall and 8 feet wide and he was very happy with it. One of the things this did was put us in front of the technology community. A lot of the show was about incorporating technology, design, and art into our every day lives."
"We have been getting a constant stream of architects, interior and exterior designers asking when it will be ready to use in projects all over the world. We have been working on the funding to get the manufacturing started from our side of things. Where NCIIA came into this and why we are so grateful to them, is when my brother and I first got together we applied for a grant because we had no start-up capital at all. They liked the idea enough that they gave us a grant for just under $15,000 to build our first working prototype. Without that, a lot of things would not have ever happened."
"The most recent event is we were commissioned to do a piece for Design Philadelphia which just ended on October 30th, 2008. We were commissioned to build a bus shelter that had solar ivy on the outside of it and had a bench built in. People who were sitting on the bench could plug their cell phone or whatever they needed to charge while they were waiting for the bus and the solar ivy on the back would be what would charge their batteries. We were also then featured in the Philadelphia newspaper because of that."
PG: Could you give us an idea of the amount of energy one of these panels could produce?
TC: "The standard size we have been working with in our prototypes is about a 4 foot by 7 foot strip, but the beauty of this system is that it could be any shape. What that generates is about 85 watts of power, which we are very happy with. We are still wanting to improve upon this as the technology improves. One of the greatest things is our product is modular. It is a system of parts, so essentially they can be updated rather easily over their lifetime."
PG: Could you tell us how the ivy leaf system works in more detail?
TC: "The wind side we are still working on. The basic product we have been working with is a solar only, since the wind side is still in development. The future model will definitely incorporate the wind side of things. The other reason we are offering solar only, is the wind side is very expensive and actually adds quite a bit of cost for the amount of power it adds."
PG: But the leaves move regardless, is that correct?
TC: "Precisely. The leaves are able to be positioned in such a way so they can look more like ivy. Some leaves are bigger, some are smaller, ans each face different directions to catch the sun and look as much like natural ivy as possible. Because the leaves are movable they can be on a vertical area, which traditional panels tend not to be. We offer a very light footprint on the face of a building or shelter."
PG: How much lighter is this system in comparison to standard solar panels?
TC: "The 4' by 7' system when not attached looks like a hammock with leaves attached. Essentially I could wear it as a scarf. It is less than 10 pounds for sure."
Thank you Teresita for taking the time to speak with us on GROW. Every next time we pass by a structure with ivy weaving over its frame we may never see it the same way again!
More Green Inventors:
You're Never Too Young to be a Green Inventor
Get to Know the Lemelson Foundation
Bringing Hydraulic Hybrid Retrofits to Developing Nations (Colorado State University)
Inventing New Uses for Coconut Shells (Baylor University)
Can the Watercycle Help Africa Survive? (Washington State University)
-
- {}
