Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Getting power to disaster-affected areas is always a tough task, but Andrew Leinonen's undergrad industrial design thesis (and recent first place entry in the 2008 ACIDO Rocket Show) might be able to solve the problem in an efficient and clever way. Dubbed Solarial, the idea is to use small unmanned airships made out of materials embedded with CIGS solar cells to autonomously deliver clean power to disaster sites by deploying anchored "power boxes" that have 12 total 120V outlets and 2 240V sockets. Obviously this is just a concept, but it's a clever one -- let's hope someone with the cash to make it happens finds out about it.
