My high school took this concept one step further. We were tasked with designing a solar hot dog cooker. The physics class specified the reflective area needed

My high school took this concept one step further. We were tasked with designing a solar hot dog cooker. The physics class specified the reflective area needed to gather enough sunlight to cook the hot dog. They tossed that over the wall to the algebra class, who determined the parabola shape and focal length from the dog. From there it was sent to drafting class, where the plans were drawn up. Those went to the kids in wood shop, to build the thing from the plans. Then one day we all went outside with our solar cookers and hot dogs and had a cookout. IIRC, there was a lot of variation among the cookers. Different reflectors were used (piece of aluminum sheet, bent and held by end brackets. Mylar film laminated to a wooden parabola "bed". One kid got adventurous and designed his with a vertical dog holder, and a circular parabola that was actually several different profiles stacked to "smear" the focal point along the vertical axis. I don't remember if it worked well or not) I think we were meant to learn some sort of process engineering in addition to our respective subjects? Or just "teamwork", I guess.