Last week, Toby came over and we played with mylar and mirrors to see what sort of light we could direct down into airshaft spaces.
I. MYLAR
Around 3:00 in the afternoon we hung some mylar sheets from the roof ledge to see how light would reflect down into the airshaft/courtyard behind my apartment building. Below is a video of the reflections from three vertical sheets (~3×5ft) hung approximately 6ft apart from each other:
Mylar has the advantage of being light, flexible, and relatively cheap. I also like it because it is safer to work with from up high and would be less likely to hurt someone if it came loose. The light reflections was caused by the wind are pretty beautiful, and one could imagine how more intense it could be if there were more sheets.
One of the issues with mylar is the sound and the need to stabilize it against stronger winds: So right now I’m in the process of designing a few possibilities for housing, rolling/unrolling and weighting the mylar. Ideally it’d be nice to also design window versions that people could hang from the lower window sills in order to increase light reflections.
II. MIRRORS
Because the 1ft x 1 ft mirrors directs sharp sunlight so specifically, I think it is best used for focusing on people’s window sills where they can keep plants or install light diffusers to brighten up their room. Bending the mirror just slightly convex or concave will also cause the light to bend into vertical and horizontal columns.
We sketched some different possibilities for a solar panel mirroring system and we’ll be working on a small model to test the mounting, motor, and sensing system.