I guess 2010 was a successful year. Over 2 decades late, the pulser pump finally got preliminary research in a university and my low tech solar research got public outlet in competition and conference and festival.
A big thank you to Sally McKay and Rob Cruickshank . Sally for accepting my entry (Tracking solar accumulator and some explanation of the clam shaped solar reflector) to the art and science fair in Toronto and Rob for minding and explaining it during the competition.
(I was unable to attend) Rob and Sally said that it was well received. This was the start of a small snowball effect.
I got to explain the tracking solar accumulator at a little booth at the organic islands festival in Victoria BC thanks to Debra Morse. Kris Constable gave me a place at the first ideawave conference in Victoria for a 10 minute talk on the solar cooking development.
To be honest, I did badly there. It was my first talk in front of an audience in over 20 years and I was very stressed but really there is no excuse.
On youtube, I have to thank muddy mud man, trailkeeper, virlusun, and gardengirl expecially for comments and promptings. Thanks to Virlusun and Britta Riley (windowfarms) I resurrected a low pressure pump Idea that I got in the 1980's! It can be powered by the gas from fermentation or by an aquarium air pump. It is kind of cool because (fermentation powered), it is my second pump with no moving parts!
The biggest success of the year was my bee houses project. On youtube it got a few hundred views, which is crappy but the instructables version of the project got featured and has got 20,000 views. Cob and stem bee habitat has now been tried on at least 3 continents according to my email!
On sour notes, the university research on the pulser pump was extremely basic, I have no evidence that the tracking solar or clam shaped ideas have been replicated yet.
There is fantastic potential for the clam shaped solar to become mainstream but there is almost zero independent research effort internationally on new solar shapes. I think commercial interests prevent this.
An astronomer weighed in on my side to say that my tracking ideas were fundamentally correct. David Williams was a great help clarifying and verifying the math of the dual dish tracking concept. Thanks to those that I did not mention. Post is getting way too long!
