hi im trying to make a box like a mini microwave that can heat food up using sun, so any suggestions? thanks?

Question

i can use carboard, aluminium foil, glue, glass. i will appreciate any suggestions thank u so much.

Answer 1

Oh wow! A solar cooker! I haven't thought about mine in years. Was a grade school project, still have it. You need a metal material like your aluminum foil, but it won't do you much good if you can't focus the heat into a smaller area. The foil will collect light and produce heat, yes, but it will also reflect both in a scatter pattern. You need to prevent this. Try painting the foil black so that it collects light but doesn't reflect it. Experiment with leaving portions of the foil unpainted, too. My cooker is a half-round (kinda like if you sliced a paper towel tube in half down the length) and has a skewer running the length, so I'd leave a strip of unpainted foil across the back of the tube to focus the light and heat. One more thing, the larger the cooker, the longer it takes to work, IF it works at all. The smaller it is, the more focused the cooking point can be. Less surface area to reflect or otherwise lose heat.

Mine worked adequately, but didn't really cook the hotdog, just got it very warm to the touch. Probably because it wasn't painted and was a bit large. I don't recall anything more than this little suggestion. I don't know what the other students did for their cookers. Grade school was about 18 years ago.

Answer 2

Does this mean you are allowed to use shaped glass? A series of lenses to focus the sun would heat up the food quickly, and also several layers of glass would allow the energy in but not necessarily out. Foil on all the edges not directly facing the sun would also allow the heat to reflect internally back on the food as much as possible.
Using these materials I'm assuming they don't expect you to heat the food up very much.

Answer 3

Put your food at the focus.

Answer 4

Check out these websites, you should be able to take it from there...
http://www.preparedness.com/solarcookers.html
http://www.solarcookers.org/basics/how.html
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/articles/build-a-solar-oven-project.html
http://www.re-energy.ca/pdf/solaroven.pdf

Answer 5

you mean a stove? j/k