Hotdogs outside the City/County building

So I took my lens cooker to work. I wish I could have taken a picture of the bus driver when she saw me carrying my large hot dog fork. On my lunch break I took it outside and set it up. I cooked hot dogs on the side of the building. It took a half hour to cook 4 hot dogs. I was not watching people's reactions but I could hear people talking about it and saying stuff like "oh cool". I really like the way the hot dog skins bubble up when they get very warm. It reminds me of watching them cook in the microwave. It is suppose to rain tomorrow so I don't think that I will be going to the farmers market, I think that I will try cooking some pasta on state street next week.

9.25.10

I had a garage sale today. While it was slow, I took the time to start a broken mirror mosaic on the surface of the dish to replace the warn out Mylar. I took silicone and spread it on the back of the mirror pieces and then arranged the shapes to roughly match up. While there will be a loss in efficiency because of the gaps between the mirrors I hope that the mirrors reflectivity will make up for it. It will be nice to have something that I can just leave outside.

This is a picture of the cooler that I designed to be used as an oven. concentrated sunlight will pass through the hole and the inside will also be covered with reflectors to pass the light onto a black body such as a cast iron. Some people say that this won't work and some say that it might work. When I painted this box, put the mylar on the outside, and added the thermometer my intention was for the dish reflector to be used. I have a feeling the the fresnel lens will work better because I will be able to get the light tighter but it is a linear focal point so I doubt that I will be able to get all of the light in the hole.

9.11.10

It rained all morning today. I will shoot for next week. I found out that the Madison children's museum is going to be having a solar cooking demonstration on the 19th perhaps I can show what I have come up with there.

9.8.10

I tested the stainless steel cooking container(SSCC) with oil today to try to make popcorn. I believe that the oil should be about 400 degrees F. It seems that the SSCC looses heat faster than the cast iron. Really when it comes down to it, it is the oil that is difficult to heat. I heated three tablespoons of vegetable oil up to 375 in about a half hour in good sun. I think that popcorn is doable but I am going to give the container 45 minutes to warm up next time.

9.4.10

I decided to do a little research about where to setup at the farmers market today. I think that the sun will be better on the southeast side of the capital. I am going to ask the police if I can setup on the capital side of the street. I have decided that instead of pancakes at the farmers market I am going to try popcorn. It will be more dynamic and exciting.

8.28.10 pancakes at the farmers market

I have decided to try and network (and hopefully find an engineering job) by showing people the lens cooker. I feel that the dish cooker is much to dangerous at this point because a person could be blinded just by looking directly at it. I was considering heating syrup up with the cooker but it would boil if I left it on to long. I got up at 5:15 am and started making a bunch of pancake batter. I found out that we did not have any baking powder or baking soda left so since I was going to be running to the store anyway I decided to just buy organic just add water pancake mix.(probably better this way since I did not have to deal with refrigeration) I started getting attention right away. Hundreds probably at least looked at me. I probably talked with 60-70 people just in the three hours that I was there. I only had one guy laugh at the cooker but to be fair when he was looking at the cooker the bamboo stick I use to control where the focal point hits the pan snapped at the same time that the lens fell down when a gust of wind came up.(note to self get a stronger stick) Lots of people just wanted to look(this is a good thing) and most were encouraging saying things like "way to go" and "good for you" I had four people come up and ask to buy a lens cooker. I gave away several pancakes but I ate almost as many as I gave away.
I think I will go to the farmers market next week, but this time I will bring plates.

8.27.10 Solar pancakes

Today for breakfast(it was going on lunch actually) we had solar pancakes. I started with a sharp focal point and got the pan up to 475 in the middle. It works much better with the focal point spread out. I cooked enough for everyone but it was a slow process. It took 5-8 minutes per cake. The last one did not turn out because I caught the shade of a tree. I boiled water for tea on my dish cooker and Sean cooked toast on the dish. He burned a couple of pieces before he decided to hold the toast slightly closer to the dish than at the focal point.