====== pear powered flower arrangments: d.eco-system ======

//Notes from a session held at the Luminous Green Hands-On Workshop, 3rd of May 2007//

Carole and Bart





===== RECIPE / reconstruction =====


==== ingredients: ====


  * pears, lemons, tomatoes, tulipes, amarylis, renoncule, cactus. 

==== tools: ====


  * plates, bowls, mixer, florist foam, crocodile clips, coper coins, zinc plates, LED, PH paper 

==== step 1: ====


  * make juices from pears, lemons, tomatoes, tulipes and amarylis.
  * mesure and record the ph levels of each ingredients:
    * tomato: 3
    * pear: 4
    * rachel: 8
    * tulipe: 5
    * lemon: 3 

this is just for info so that we know at what acidic level we are most effective.

==== step 2: ====


  * make a tilt switch with an amarylis and pear juice:
  * fill the amarylis stem (naturally hollow) with pear juice and "close" the stem with a bit of clingfilm. plug in a copper tube at the bottom of the stem and a zinc plate near the top. remove a bit of juice so that the part of the stem between the zinc and the coper if not completely full.
  * when you hold the amarylis in a horizontal way, the currrent flows through it, but when you tilt it vertical it disconnects. 

==== step 3: ====


  * 2 serial circuits tulipe bouquet connected in a parralel circuit.
  * We tested 1 tulipe which gave 0.46 V. Based on that test, we connected 2 x 5 tulipes in a parallel circuit and achieved 1.94V. however only 0.02 A... so a lot of fidling for not much result. Patrik suggested to change the mollecular structure of the tulipe, i.e: blend it into a juice state. 

with this liquid tulipe we achived 2x3 tulipes parallel circuits whcih powered an LED for a few hours.

  * however there was a crucial fudge factor: we mixed the tulipe with some pear juice to help the blending process, thus the conductive potential..... 

the final product was a very poetic electronic tulipe "candle".

===== Context and further debate: =====


  * Throughout the afternoon some people expressed concerns about food wastage and this made me think a lot more about the why and the how of the experiment. What surprised me most was the actual amount of raw materials needed to power 1 LED. Globally, an average of 25% of the world population exploits inefficiently 80% of the world ressource. I think this "d.eco-system" experiment could be explored further as a way to create a visual analogy of our wasteful ways of lives.
  * Asmita Kumar - Comparison of Photovoltaic Effect in Silicon and Natural Dye Based Cells using Different Light Sources

  * TO DO: find PDF - OrganicPV