Cooking With Solar Ovens

This past school year in my Conceptual Physics Class, we did a project where we built a solar oven. The main objective was for us to build something that would heat up and cook food, by only using the sun. In order to make this project work, I relied on reflection and mirrors. Overall, there are many different ways you can make a solar oven, but I'm going to share with you what I did to make mine.

To begin, I collected my supplies, which included:

4 mirror tiles
11 7/8in*11 7/8in thin piece of wood
4 pieces of wood measuring 12.5"w*5.5"h*.75"d
4 1ft dowels - plastic or wooden
plexiglass
nails
8 wood sticks about 1in wide
Metal grate to go inside your box

1.Once I had all my supplies I began with making my box. To do this I took once side of my 12.5*5.5*.75in piece of wood and glued and nailed it to the bottom of my 11 7/8"*11 7/8" piece of wood. I repeated this step 3 more times until I had an open faced box. If you were to do this you could easily just use an already made wooden box.

The mirror tiles on the left and the base for my box on the right

The 4 piece of wood for the sides of the box: they measured 12.5*5.5*.75in

The finished box with the sides nailed together and attached to the base

*Note how each piece overlaps the other

2.Next with my dad's help, we cut grooves on the tops of each piece of wood using a 1/2in router bit. We did this so we could nest the mirror on-top of the box.

1/2in grooves routered on each side

3.We also put thin strips along the inside of the box about 1in from the top and cut the plexiglass to fit the inside of the box on top of these ledges. I also hot glued a small piece of string so I could remove the plexiglass.

A shelf inside the box for the plexiglass to sit on

4.Once the box was ready, I spray painted the inside black so it would absorb the suns heat.

The Box spray Painted Black

5.Next we took 1in wide strips of wood and drilled 2 holes about 1in apart. We then hot glued the wood strips onto the back of the mirror tiles. These allowed our dowels to support the mirrors.

Strips for the dowels to go into

Now for assembly;

Take your box and place it in a open space of grass.
Place a metal grate inside your box.
Seal the box with the plexiglass
Take each glass tile and place into the grooves and use the dowels to angle the mirrors.
Adjust the mirrors based on where the sun is. When adjusting the mirrors you will see the light shining into the box. Set it up so the mirror stays there.
Once the oven is set up, let it sit and heat up.
When its heated, place in your food to cook. (Don't place in any raw meats or things that must be heated to a minimum temperature, to avoid food-borne illnesses). When I used my oven I made a mini pizza for myself. To do this I took a pita bread, added some pizza sauce, and topped it with mozzarella cheese. Then I topped my pizza with cooked chicken, pineapple, and red onions. Once my pizza was ready I placed it onto my grill grate inside the heated oven, and sealed the plexiglass again. Once in the oven I let my pizza sit until the cheese began to brown and bubble.