DIY solar cooker workshop

the fun panel solar cooker cut the aluminium paper testing it out! setting up the cooker on okno's rooftop domes and cookers

calculation and cutting finished! second try solar cooking rice and vegetables so-on rooftop solar cooking

Thursday 24 july 10 women (and 3 man) gatered at okno to build solar cookers. It was a sunny day, luckily.
In 2 hours time we built 3 umbrella-cookers and 3 fun-panel/cookit cookers. We started some cooking tests around 4.30 pm. The sunmoved fast and we had to adjust the cookers all the time. Than came the wind and he blew our pots away. Finally we cooked a simple meal on okno’s electric plates.

For pictures, go the the photo-album page and select solar_cooking: brussels.
Sofie, Marthe, Shelbatra, Wendy, Billy, Tina, Sara, Christina, Audrey, Annemie, Wouter, Fabrice and Rene.

The next day I decided to give solarcooking a second try. On my Brussels rooftop I installed my barbecue-umbrella cooker. I painted a Chinese steampot with black acrylic, positioned my set in order that sunrays were focusing in the middle of the umbrella and that I easily could optimise the reflection on the pot.
I put (in this order): a little bit of water, some rice, olive oil, sweet potato in small dices, tomatoes, green paprika, cucumber, chilli pepper, garlic, coriander, pepper and salt. I started cooking at 2.45pm.
It was a sunny and windless day. Very soon the dish in the pot started to smell really good. I was still optimistic. and invited some friend to come over and share my first solar cooking dinner.
But around 7.45pm, after 5 hours, the dish was still not ready and the sun was gone again! Conclusion: solarcooking with the belgian sun will (always) be tricky. I give it a last try next week, with the midday-sun.

Pictures from Billie Boets’ solar cooker experiment – boiling water with the midday-sun, 101*C !

Solarcooking 004 Solarcooking 003 Solarcooking 002 Solarcooking 001

general info:
http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/
http://solarcooking.org/default.htm

specific cooker-models to build during our workshop:
1. the CooKit or Fun-Panel_Cooker (built from cardboard)
http://www.freewebs.com/sunnycooker/funpanelcookerplan.htm
http://solarcooking.org/plans/cookit.htm
2. the Paracucina or the Portable Solar Barbecue (built from an umbrella)
http://www.solarcooking.org/plans/barbeque.htm
3. Double-Angled-Twelve-Sided Solar Cooker (DATS) (built from cardboard)
http://solarcooking.org/plans/DATS.htm