Update on Thermal Insulation Boards project

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Alison Kidd

Back in 2024, we funded Antoinette Oni ‘s project to create thermal insulation boards from a composite based on abundant crop waste material available in the UK.

Last week, Antoinette emailed to tell us the impressive story of how things had progressed as a result of the initial experimental development of a straw board which our Idea Fund enabled. As is typical of early experimentation of an idea, it proved a struggle formulating a material that didn’t rely on a binder additive which compromises the circularity of the material. Fortunately, Antoinette was able to team up with a PhD scientist who had developed a way to make straw fibres self-bind into a strong, very durable board using rice straw. Together, they developed a thermal insulation board using local UK waste fibres and named it ‘WHEATEX’.

Antoinette told us: “Fast forward to now, we’ve had great success and opened a production facility in Cheshire where we take straw from local farmers and turn them into WHEATEX insulation boards. We’ve just retrofitted a 1850’s farm house with our material and we’re working with researchers from Cambridge University who’ve installed air quality sensors to verify our claims that natural fibre insulation has a positive impact on indoor air quality when compared to conventional, synthetic insulation. “

Wow! Every now and then early experimentation of an idea can lead to such success. We are delighted for Antoinette and her team and wish them well in the next exciting stages. You can read all about the new WHEATEX product here.

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Update on Tree Hugger project

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Alison Kidd

It’s always delightful to hear from past recipients of our ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund’ awards. Suhandan has made amazing progress with his Tree Hugger project – a robot which checks and feeds back data on the disease status of trees in a forest in order to encourage early detection. This is a short video by Suhandan outlining the way he’s recently been evolving his design.

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AI makes you smarter but none the wiser

Posted on January 29, 2026 by Alison Kidd

Really interesting paper here Experimental evidence that:

People are less able to accurately assess their performance when using AI.

Using Large Language Models levels out the Dunning–Kruger effect (a cognitive bias that describes the systematic tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. The term may also describe the tendency of high performers to underestimate their skills. )

Both higher AI literacy and higher confidence in individuals correlate with lower self-assessment accuracy.

Thanks to the ever useful PsyBlog for bringing my attention to this.

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What will naturally generate here?

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Alison Kidd

I am running an informal natural generation experiment in the field and wood I own here in mid-Wales. Last summer, the forestry along one boundary was harvested leaving that edge of my wood completely exposed to the West. This offers considerably more light to that area as well as the likelihood of more trees being blown down in any gales.

In his quarterly photographing of the field below the wood, friend Jon Dixon took some photos of this new open area so we can study what changes happen over time.

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Idea Fund Award – Microplastics beach cleaning device

Posted on December 4, 2025 by Alison Kidd

The last of our 2025 ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund awards goes to sea kayaker, Roy Beal, founder of Clean Jurassic Coast CIC, a not-for-profit run by volunteers who work to remove plastic and other litter from beaches.

Based on his love of the ocean and mission to remove plastic, Roy’s idea is to develop a microplastic beach cleaning device using static electricity and electromagnetic fields.  Roy explains where his thinking comes from:-

“Technology exists to remove microplastics from water using static electricity, but there does not appear to be an application to remove these harmful plastics once they have washed ashore.

Microplastics are small plastics less then 5mm in size. These can be fragments from broken plastic, polystyrene pieces, nurdles or bio-beads. Nurdles are plastic pellets roughly the size of a lentil, and are used in the production of plastic goods. Bio-beads are a similar size, with a rough surface, and are used in water treatment. Both nurdles and bio-beads often end up in the environment, usually due to industry spillages.

All microplastics are harmful to wildlife, especially nurdles and bio-beads as they look like food. Fish, birds and animals eat them, but are unable to digest them. Bio-beads are especially harmful as they are used to clean sewage water and contain a lot of toxins.

I have been experimenting with ways to collect these plastics using static electricity and electromagnetic fields and have proved the concept, but need financial assistance to go further with the intention to build a portable machine that can be used to clear spills from beaches.

When nurdles wash ashore, they soon get mixed with seaweed and other organics making it difficult to collect them. Seaweed contains important nutrients for any given ecosystem and should not be removed. We want to create a way to remove microplastics from the shore, leaving the important organic material behind.

Nurdles

My idea is to create a machine that will use suction to remove material from the beach, separate the plastics using a mixture of vibration and electricity, collecting the plastic before returning the organic material to the beach.”

Our award will enable Roy to acquire the components he needs to build a prototype for testing in a real environment. We wish him well in this intriguing and potentially significant venture tackling the ever worsening problem of microplastics on our beaches.

Roy at work on a beach clean
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Idea Fund Award – Plant powered sheets

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Alison Kidd

Our latest award is to Natalie Smith who works in food education and sustainability in Inverness via her project Seed2Plate. While training Home Economics in schools, she noticed how many usable scraps of vegetable waste were going straight into the bin with nowhere else to go. Natalie started bringing some of it home, thinking she could make something to feed her own vegetable plants especially if it might also solve her watering problems. She couldn’t find any commercial products which provided both water and nutrients, it was usually one or the other. 

So, Natalie began her own experiments using natural extracts and gelling agents with different nutrient teas that she had brewed from food waste and garden by-products, She cast a rough prototype: a biodegradable sheet that could hold moisture, release nutrients gradually, and compost harmlessly back into the soil. In just a six week quick stress test window, the results exceeded expectations. Plants with the sheets stayed moist for days, if not weeks, longer than controls with minimal watering. In hanging basket trials, plants thrived with around 70% less water. Most surprisingly, a squash plant struggling with powdery mildew (usually only managed by cutting back, spraying or discarding) actually recovered and put on fresh growth in less than 48 hours without a single leaf needing to be cut off.

Before and after squash plant

Our ‘I’ve got an idea fund’ award will help Natalie now extend her DIY experiments: assessing the effectiveness of different blends of food waste teas as well as vacuum-packing the sheets for stabilisation to see for how long they stay usable. 

As Natalie says, “while the basic idea of a sheet to hold water may exist in other forms, this is rarely if ever applied in horticulture this way nor is the concept of the ability to infuse them for different requirements, whether that’s for nutrition, recovery, or even pest deterrence and that is what I hope would make Plant Powered Sheets unique”.

As readers may have noticed, the ‘I’ve got an idea’ fund team is particularly drawn to DIY experimentation by applicants – not only because it’s a great way to test and evolve an idea but also because hands-on experimentation is fun and provides valuable learning even if the original idea doesn’t work. 

Good Luck Natalie!

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Field regenerating…

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Alison Kidd

Hay Meadow Seed Scattering 3 – September 2025

Graham, our friendly ecologist, returned today to clear another couple of patches to scatter hay seed harvested from his local wildflower meadow. From this experiment 2 years ago, the only visible result was small patches of yellow rattle and the odd red clover. The patches cleared today are contiguous with the ones from 2 years ago.

After we’d scattered the hay.

Read the rest of this ongoing project here

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Visit to an Idea Fund project

Posted on August 7, 2025 by Alison Kidd

An inspiring visit yesterday to see progress on Johana Hartwig’s Idea Fund project based in Cardiff Bay.

Johana is exploring how her city could find ways to feed itself utilising a kind of hydroponic system, grown on the waste discarded in the Bay. Since receiving our fund award at the end of March, Johana has collected a range of waste from the bay and explored which of the random bits and pieces could be used to construct an aesthetic, floating, reasonably robust structure. She then planted a diversity of edible plants to see if they would grow on her first experimental platform in such an environment.

On a mini tour through her process, Johana first showed us some of the waste foam, plastic containers, branches, twigs, ropes and twine collected and her techniques for creating a workable structure from these including the necessary buoyancy. It raises interesting questions as to what environmentally questionable materials it’s “ok” to put back in the water to use again and how well will they will withstand the elements and wildlife.

It was great to see how the edible plants (herbs, cucumber, tomatoes, kale and edible flowers) had all flourished despite never bring watered during months of almost drought conditions here in South Wales. The tour finished with us consuming herb tea made from our own pick from the floating plants together with some herb infused chocolates made by Johana.

Part of Johana’s motive is to stimulate conversation about growing edible plants in the heart of a city using water that is already there. She’s especially interested in the potential of the large areas of fresh water in the historic, now unused docks. We look forward to seeing what happens next. You can follow Johana’s journey here.

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Idea Fund Award – Developing a Field Insect Microscope

Posted on July 22, 2025 by Alison Kidd

Our latest ‘I’ve got an idea’ Fund award is to Freddy Sarathchandra, a mechanical engineer and public health scientist.

During his PhD research and subsequent start up company Enstic’s work on acoustic ID devices for automated insect detection, Freddy has developed a strong interest in developing a low cost, rugged microscope for collection of high quality images that allow simple, fast insect ID in the field without needing to take specimens away from where they were found.

Freddy at work in the field

Most confocal microscopes are designed for bench use and stability so are heavy, fragile to transport in a backpack and the imaging area where specimens are placed is not shielded from the elements. This means that light breezes can blow the insect being imaged away, making imaging hard to do in the field. Also, high powered lighting is essential for high quality macro insect images and this is tricky to get in the field.

Freddy is keen to experiment with several technically innovative ideas to address these issues. These include: keeping insects still during imaging in a non-lethal way, incorporating high powered multi directional lighting with minimal insect-lens-lighting distances and overcoming depth of field limits with stepped height images.

Freddy hopes that developing a small portable microscope for field entomologists could also help engage the wider public, scientific & citizen science community in the important task of identifying and understanding insects.

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Idea Fund Award – Tree Hugger Robot for detecting early signs of tree disease & environmental stress

Posted on July 15, 2025 by Alison Kidd

 Suhandan is a 14 year old student living in Scotland who’s passionate about robotics and environmental conservation. Suhandan has built a first prototype of his Tree Hugger robot idea which will use a range of sensors: Thermal, to take readings of the tree’s temperature and Soil moisture, to take data from the soil at the base of the tree. An ESP-32 camera is programmed with machine learning to recognize diseased tree bark. Additionally, the robot is equipped with a prototype robotic arm, so in future iterations, a locator tag or a data monitoring tag can be placed. Plans include finding tree tags that could transmit live data to scientists and creating an open-source platform for students and conservation groups to replicate the technology.

Having built a proof of concept, our ‘I’ve got an idea’ Fund award will enable Suhandan to bring his robot up to a realistic scale and deploy it for meaningful field testing traversing actual forest floors and collecting tree data.

You can see a short video of Suhandan introducing his Tree Hugger idea here.

We were impressed by Suhandan’s enthusiasm for and commitment to his idea. We wish him luck and look forward to following his progress.

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