A visiting artist, Daniel Connell is building the Solarflower, an open source solar energy collector which can be made very easily from common recycled and salvaged materials, using basic tools and skills.

The Solarflower is an open source solar energy collector which can be made very easily from common recycled and salvaged materials, using basic tools and skills.

It can be made almost anywhere, by almost anyone, is compact, portable, involves no inputs or emissions and has no real limit on how much power it can produce.

Potential applications include electrical generation, water purification, cooking, heating, charcoal, gasification, and whatever else heat can be used for. Devices to fulfill these applications would also fit the brief of being essentially free, safe, easily constructable and available to everyone.

All designs are open source and available to anyone to produce, royalty free, even (and especially) for profit.

I will also be traveling, working with NGOs and community groups teaching people how to construct and suit the devices to their local needs.

Full tutorials will be posted free to http://www.solarflower.info as they become available.

The Solarflower is demonstrated here

and here