Children's Association for Nature » saving energy

Baking in the Cardboard Box Oven

Mina — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:42:54 +0000

As I said in a previous post, I made a solar oven out of a cardboard box (well, actually two cardboard boxes, a sheet of plexiglass, newspaper, black paint, and tape) and wanted to try it out.

To test the oven I got one of those super unhealthy cookie dough rolls from the store (So I wouldn’t be too disappointed if they didn’t work out). I covered the bottom of the oven with wax paper and spooned the cookie dough onto it. Wow, that dough was so greasy! Then I covered it with the sheet of plexiglass and set it in the sun on my roof deck. I propped it up a bit so it was angled towards the sun.

The cookies took somewhere from two to four or possibly five hours to cook. There was so much grease that it went through the wax paper and got all over the bottom of the oven. When I opened the oven, I picked up a cookie and the bottom stuck so I ate that one and let the rest cook for about another hour and a half. By then the cookies where equally done and the bottoms still stuck. It was because I had used wax paper instead of an oiled tray (which I will do next time), not because they were undercooked.

The oven works by using the aluminum foil covered flaps to reflect heat from the sun through the acrylic cover where it is absorbed by the black paint and trapped by the cover. According to Kyoto Energy, it can heat up to 100°C, but probably only in, say, 40° weather (it was designed for third-world countries near the equator, not for Vancouver).

Cardboard Box Oven

Mina — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:48:22 +0000

A cardboard box won £50,000 (almost $90,000 Canadian) in the Financial Time Climate Change Challenge. It beat many inventions, including ‘a food additive that stops cows from passing wind.’ Of course, it was more than a cardboard box— it was a solar oven. Able, according to Kyoto Energy (the company that made it), to boil water and bake bread by heating up to a maximum of 100°C. There was a rough description on the site, and following the guidelines I made one myself. So far I have melted a piece of wax in it, but I will try baking cookies or something in it this weekend.

The article on MAKE blog

See my instructions for how to make one yourself

Become an Official Energy Hog Buster

Mina — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:52:40 +0000

Energy Hog (the kid’s part) is an animated website in the form of a game where you can learn how to become an official energy hog buster. You have to beat 5 games and when you are done you get a printable certificate. Only five major energy hogs are covered (with some notes on how to prevent other things from being energy hogs) but it is still good if you don’t know a lot about energy hogs. Just do not take the games and the pictures literally!