Light up your room with some citrus

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By jonahbc
Posted 2008/06/26 @ 8:11 pm
Category Electronics

The “Lemon Light” by Japanese artist / designer, Yuri Suzuki is a small portable light powered only by the lemon used to carry it. Although there have been many “fruit powered projects” in the past, this one is nice because of its portability and the artist’s intent to highlight our wastefulness of energy and to increase people’s awareness of the origins of electrical energy.

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8 Responses to Light up your room with some citrus

ap1.myopenid.com on June 27th, 2008 at 8:58 am said:

I find these “fruit-powered” projects often disguise the creation of energy more than they reveal it. The energy is really stored in the two metal prongs with the lemon just acting as a soup into which they melt. We don’t say that our walkman runs on battery acid. We shouldn’t be trying to tell people that these projects run on fruit. Especially if we’re trying to teach anything about energy production and conservation.

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anonjohn on June 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am said:

Yep, I was about to post the same thing. The energy is already there in the metal. Another “artiste” fails 4th grade science. Not surprising.

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Billy Clinton on June 27th, 2008 at 10:21 am said:

I like how the apparatus looks like a miniature boob.

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Anonymous on June 27th, 2008 at 11:15 am said:

Does it come with a can of Raid to kill the bugs it will attract?

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BigD145 on June 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm said:

I see this as a nice example of both wastefulness and second-hand solar energy. That lemon was grown with sunlight, so it’s essentially a living battery. But, that light also looks like a plastic thing that’ll end up polluting the ocean and giving cancer to living organisms.

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ap1.myopenid.com on June 27th, 2008 at 1:08 pm said:

The lemon’s not a living battery unless you eat it or light it on fire.

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BigD145 on June 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pm said:

How often do you eat batteries or set them on fire?

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ap1.myopenid.com on June 27th, 2008 at 4:53 pm said:

BigD- That’s pretty much the only way to get energy out of a lemon.

My car requires engine oil to run but does not run on engine oil. THIS PROJECT DOES NOT RUN ON LEMONS. THE LEMON IS NOT SERVING AS A BATTERY.

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