Making a Solar Cooker

by Christie Levine in Circuits > Tools

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Making a Solar Cooker

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The goal of our project was to make a solar thermal cooker based off our own design that would be able to cook some sort of food. We were trying to accomplish making some sort of edible food by using just the sun and our solar cooker. Our maximum temperature achieved was 158 degrees Fahrenheit. People in developing countries would be interesting in building this project because it would be able to take the bacteria out of unsafe drinking water as well as the ability to heat up water and other types of food.

You would need to gather:
A cardboard box (medium size)
1 roll of Reflective tape
1 Foam Board 
Reflective Mylar

The rest of the materials are:
1 roll of Duct Tape 
Pot or pan
1 roll of Aluminum Foil
7 feet of string

Tools you will need are:
Scissors
Box cutters
Marker

The materials themselves cost about ten dollars. The duct tape was about four dollars, the aluminum foil costs a dollar from the dollar store, the reflective Mylar costs a dollar per yard, the foam board was free due to reusing from a conference (if you can't find the foam board use cardboard. It took about a hour and a half to assemble this project. The dimensions of the final project is the height being  .You only need to get sunglasses in order to not hurt your eyesight. Also, be cautious of the box cutters they are very sharp. You can substitute the foam board for cardboard and you can substitute the reflective tape with silver duct tape it doesn't work as well but it still works.

Step 1: Box (ugly to Woah)

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You get a normal (BBB) big boring box. Then you take apart the parts of the box that glues it together to form the shape that will bring in the most sunlight.

Step 2: YAAASSS Duct Tape.

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ONce you get the angle that you think or have calculated would be the best you tape that box. Not with the mediocre tape that sucks but use duct tape. The best known tape to human existence. Make sure there is enough that even a gorilla wouldn't be able to destroy it.

Step 3 : Board Cutting Time.

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Then Grab a large board. It doesnt matter what kind as long as its flat and you could put stuff like fill and tape on top of it and it would be able to stay smooth. Try to not mess up and outline it like they make kids do in the 5th grade. It will be extremely helpful. No one likes wasting big boards of paper or whatever.

Step 4: MORE Duct Tape and Connecting Two

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Once the outline is done cut the piece out with a knife. Then put duct tape on the base of the box and put the cut out piece of the board on top of it.

Step 5 : Aluminum ALL OF THE THINGS!

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Put aluminum foil and aluminum tape to use for the base because it would not be used as much to collect sunlight. The walls of the box are what will be bringing in the most sunlight. For the walls use reflective Mylar It sounds cooler and works better.

Step 6 : Outgoing Box

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Once you are all set building the solar thermal cooker adjust it so that it would get a lot of sunlight to heat up the food that you would want to cook. You should also use a black pot to absorb the heat other then the other loser crom pots that stink. It would also be helpful to have a shadow creature to guard your cooker. We used a magestic shadow horse. It help IMMENSELY.

Last Step: Tea. Tea. TEA.

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Once it is all built and it is a bright sunny day you could cook whatever you think that your cooker could make. For example the one thing god had brought down from heaven onto earth is glorious tea. You could cook whatever you want but why make anything else when you have tea.