Angela Gets Potato Power for a Cell Phone on "Bones"

Angela is put in charge of recovering vital information on a victim's cell phone. She has to find a way to get the SIM card in the phone to work. The damaged cell phone belonged to a victim.

After opening the cell phone, Angela realizes there are more problems with the phone than a dead battery. She finds the wires are corroded, but the SIM card can be saved.

Since the SIM card can be saved, she tries to use Camille, Jack, Wendell and her phones to get the card to work. To no avail, their phones are incompatible with their victim's phone.

Angela did manage to repair some of the wiring in the phone. After the repair, she still could not find a way to get the phone to turn on without a charge on the battery. Since the Jeffersonian Institute lost power during the winter storm, she could not charge it.

She knew she could not use another option she had without electricity. She wanted to use an alkaline battery. This method would not allow the gradual power needed for the cell phone battery charge.

At this point, Angela was giving up hope to find the information needed for the investigation. While she was explaining her dilemma to Wendall, one of Dr. Brennan's interns, he came up with a "miracle" for Angela.

Wendell went to the cafeteria and took hundreds of pounds of potatoes. He had done a science experiment in grade school involving potatoes and electricity.

Wendell used electrical wire, connectors, potatoes, and an amp voltage meter to recreate his grade school experiment. In order for the power from the potatoes to work gradually, he would have to connect them in serials to increase the voltage Angela needed.

He connected small groups of potatoes with the wire and connectors to start. He checked the amperage of each group with the meter. Once Jack and he had the groups set up, they connected each group in parallel to slowly give the power to the phone.

After the potatoes were connected and hooked to the cell phone, it looked as if the potato power was a bust. Due to a slow loading of the phone, it came on. Angela managed to find there were phone numbers coming into the phone.

Before she could get all the information needed, the potatoes poop out and the cell phone dies. This makes Angela, Wendell and Jack sad the potatoes did not last the hours they were supposed to for the cell phone.

Source

"The Blackout in the Blizzard" episode of "Bones"; Fox.com