This works? Solar Cooking From Aluminum Funnel Cooking ...

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How to make and use a Solar funnel cooker
Special thanks go to Steven Jones on this one, whose team at BYU invented and have perfected the solar funnel cooker.

Steven says the following about the solar funnel cooker: A few years ago, I woke up to the fact that half of the world's peoples must burn wood or dried dung in order to cook their food. It came as quite a shock to me, especially as I learned of the illnesses caused by breathing smoke day in and day out, and the environmental impacts of deforestation -not to mention the time spent by people (mostly women) gathering sticks and dung to cook their food. And yet, many of these billions of people live near the equator, where sunshine is abundant and free. Ergo...

The parabolic cooker involves a reflective dish that concentrates sunlight to a point where the food is cooked. This approach is very dangerous since the sun's energy is focused to a point which is very hot, but which cannot be seen. (BYU students and I built one which will set paper on fire in about 3 seconds!) I learned that an altruistic group had offered reflecting parabolas to the people living at the Altiplano in Bolivia. But more than once the parabolas had been stored next to a shed -- and the passing sun set the sheds on fire! The people did not want these dangerous, expensive devices, even though the Altiplano region has been stripped of fuel wood.

The box cooker: Basically an insulated box with a glass or plastic lid, often with a reflecting lid to reflect sunlight into the box. Light enters through the top glass (or plastic), to slowly heat up the box. Problems: energy enters only through the top, while heat is escaping through all the other sides, which have a tendency to draw heat away from the food. When the box is opened to put food in or take it out, some of the heat escapes and is lost. Also, effective box cookers tend to be more complicated to build than the funnel cooker.

While studying this problem, I thought again and again of the ...

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[dkw12002]

I made one from a THIN round cardboard that was used to protect the top of a circular cardtable in the box. I could make the cuts with scissors and tape the edges together exactly how I wanted them. Too flimsey, but then I applied papier mache to the outside and it firmed up the entire thing. Lastly, I added the tinfoil. I made a parabolic cooker the same way. These work very well. I made one extra-large panel cooker this way too with 4' reflective panels. It cooks best of all my homemade ones.

[strive4impact]

With the 4' panels, how to you protect them from being blown around by the wind?

Thanks for commenting!

Jonathan

[thejesters1975]

Loved the bloopers at the end.Great video!

[strive4impact]

Thanks! I have had fun making these videos, and learning to cook with a solar cooker has been interesting too!

[dudeman6588]

i made a solar cooker out of a big magnifying lens and i placed it on top of a big metal cylinder. it actually heated up to about 200 degrees. its was really cool.

[dkw12002]

Mostly, it is the weight of the pot and food I'm cooking that keeps the panel cookers from blowing over. If that wouldn't work, I'd put a brick in it, but we don't have real windy days here. The paper mache made the cooker light but very strong, so it it doesn't flex in the wind either. I just heated some water, added flour and dipped pieces of newspaper. Try it. It is easy to get exactly the shape you want that way. If you have 4 separate reflectors, you can even wrap the mache to fill in gaps