http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1765&Itemid=23Amdo, Tibet - In many villages throughout Tibet, there are two ways to cook a meal. There’s the traditional open fire, fueled by yak dung or the region’s increasingly scarce wood. And then there are solar cookers, concentrating mirrors made of two-inch-thick concrete and covered with a mosaic of small glass mirrors.
The fires produce a lot of smoke, which, especially in the confined quarters of a kitchen, can lead to lung disease. The solar cookers are clean, but so heavy that it takes four people to move one, and they have a poorly engineered focus that sometimes lights fires, cooks food unevenly or even damages metal pots.
When MIT student Scot Frank and Catlin Powers of Wellesley College visited Tibet two years ago, one thing they kept hearing from the villagers was that it would make a big difference to their lives if there was a solar cooker that was lightweight enough to be carried with them when they went off to spend the day tending their fields or their flocks, yet strong enough to stand up to the strong winds that howl across the Tibetan plateau.
A team of students from MIT and from Qinghai Normal University in Tibet’s Amdo region ended up producing exactly that. The lightweight dish they produced, inspired by Tibetan nomadic tents, is made of yak-wool canvas panels, supported by bamboo ribs, and faced with reflective mylar. Easily disassembled and transported by one person, the cooker can then be quickly reassembled in the field and staked down solidly on the ground to resist the wind. In the fall, the students will begin testing their prototype in several villages, and make the design available to local factories for manufacture.
<more>
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
