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Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven
changed title :)
- jcl 18y agoI recall articles in kids' magazines in the mid-80's about how to build solar cookers. Apparently, they are already in widespread use today, with many different designs: http://solarcooking.org/plans/ http://solarcooking.org/plans/ Does anyone know what makes this new design special?
- jrockway 18y agoThe ones you link to look significantly more difficult to build. This one is two boxes and a piece of plastic (from what I understand). I guess this is neat, because I remember building a similar device when I was a kid, but it couldn't boil water or do any useful cooking. It was sort of able to warm up a hot dog...
- whacked_new 18y ago> The ones you link to look significantly more difficult to build. This one is two boxes and a piece of plastic (from what I understand). Seems to be the case, and looks like a significant difference. There's also a plexiglass cover, which likely helps insulate the heat inside. Simple yet ingenious, like the hipporoller ( http://www.hipporoller.org/ http://www.hipporoller.org/ ). Absolutely fantastic. For a more high-end design you can attach a heat sensor and make it electric-hybrid. Or gas-hybrid... or crankshaft-hybrid!!
- jcl 18y agoYou mean, like the first box cooker on the page?: http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Minimum_Solar_Box_Cooker Like the cooker in the article, it is a foil-lined cardboard box, with a black-painted cardboard box inside. And it recommends a plastic bag instead of a plexiglass cover, so it might be considered even more basic than the one in the article.
- jcromartie 18y agoMost "solar cookers" try to focus sunlight directly on the object to be heated. This new design is almost exactly like a traditional oven in that the main goal is to heat air, and not the food directly.
- whacked_new 18y agoNot to criticize your creativity, but I propose changing the title, because I was expecting something about food, which it isn't entirely. But it is full of awesome and based in Nairobi!
- mhb 18y agoCould also be used to distill/desalinate water when it's not in use for other purposes.
- ramoq 18y agoSolve the simplest problem that tons of people have. Excellent invention in my opinion.
- fuzzythinker 18y agoAn estimated time to boil a liter of room temperature water and cook a sunny side up egg would have been helpful.
- ableal 18y agoGood catch. Some optimistic back-of-the-envelope says it could be around 5 min for the liter of water. (The egg should go faster, if I remember my WWII-in-North-Africa frying-eggs-on-tanks movie scenes right ;-) Assumptions: 1 square meter blackbody collector for 1 kW/m2 solar radiation, plus dt of 80C (which, for 1l water, needs 80 kcal = 80 x 1.162 Wh) -> 335 seconds. I'd say a one square meter (~10 sq.feet) box is about equivalent to a standard 700W microwave - between 10 am and 3 pm on sunny days ...
- ableal 17y agoJust for the record: a couple of days later, a local newspaper had this story; their short piece said the box would boil 10 liters in 2 hours. That's about double my optimistic estimate, which did not take into account any losses by conduction or convection. From the pics, the box doesn't seem to be as big as 1 meter square either.
- fortunado 18y agoI've made one of these before... along with the rest of my third grade class. I guess someone should have called CNN back then.