Metal Flowers Blossom with the Sun

As we all know the natural flowers blossom with the sun, but be ready to believe that even metal flowers can, yes It’s a technological reality: Metal flowers that open and close on their own with the passing of the sun.

The flowers, from a Kickstarter initiative called Bimetal Creations, are powered solely by changes in ambient air temperature. There are no solar panels, motors, batteries or switches. Instead the flowers open and close to the natural expansion of the metal.

Working:

The main thing that the flowers used are the properties of bimetallic strips containing two different metals bonded side-to-side which generate mechanical displacement with changes in temperature.

As one strip expands or contracts and the other doesn’t, a kind of sideways pressure causes the strip to bend. It’s the same phenomenon that powers certain kinds of thermostats with dial indicators.

The metal flowers’ creator, engineer Greg Mathy, said he was inspired to invent the flowers when he was working on a design dilemma concerning the thermal mismatch between steel and aluminum.

“I originally got the idea because I am a nerdy engineer who deals with thermal expansion on a daily basis,” Mathy told Discovery News in an email. “As I started to learn more about Bimetal, I thought that there has to be a cool use for such a unique material. Lying in bed one night, I figured maybe I could make a Bimetal flower.”

Another excellent engineer named Mathy, spent more than four years working on his design before launching his successful Kickstarter campaign, which wraps up this week.

Four different Bimetal flowers are currently available, code-named Ruth, Mabel, Henriette and Ethel. The minimum $39 pledge will get you one flower in the color of your choice, with delivery sometime before October.

The petals and stem of each flower are made from copper, with the Bimetal coil design remaining “top secret.”

Mathy said each flower takes about 10 minutes to manually assemble from pre-made parts.

“Let’s just say that there are other types of flowers that can be mimicked with Bimetal,” Mathy said.

Note: 227 backers pledged $27,470 to help bring this project to life.

This project is really deserving of fulfillment and a perfect for a drought resistant garden.