
Designed by Knut Karlsen, the
SunCats are basically a set of old NiMH rechargeable batteries wrapped in a
flexible Photo Voltaic cell created by the Institute for Energy Technology. When
the batteries are drained, you simply leave them sitting in a windowsill or
anywhere with ample sunlight and they'll recharge themselves. The PV cells were
simply glued onto the batteries and wired up using a conductive silver pen and
some flat wires scavenged from a broken canon lens. At the moment they only
provide a weak trickle charge to the batteries, but Knut envisions a second
version with built-in capacitors and electronics to make the charging process
more efficient.