Cooking with sunshine in Arizona

July 30, 2016July 30, 2016 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

We took out the solar oven again this week, and it was amazing what a ‘black box’ could do, unsupervised.

My wife has become quite an expert – and experimenter. This was the latest. Stuffed bell peppers, with rosemary. Previously it was roast beef. Before that egg plant, and spaghetti squash…
The oven we use the Solavore Sport. It comes with two black pots that perfectly fit in the oven space even with the lids. This week, with temps hovering in the 108 degree range, it didn’t take long to get up to 250 degrees in the oven.

In May, I conducted a Chili Cook-Off at Salt River Elementary, as part of a year-end STEM project for 6th graders. May was a ‘cooler’ month (if you could call 98 degrees cool – a sarcastic Arizona joke of sorts). And yet we had chili cooking at 275 degrees within 20 minutes.

Solar Oven STEM project – Chili Cook-Off!

April 28, 2016 / Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

As temps rise, I’m bringing out my solar oven for an engineering & science class. It will be a ‘maker’ type session that will culminate in a Chili Cook-Off for 5th and 6th grades. Students of each grade have been asked to come up with their own class Chili recipe and put it to the test. Outside judges will decide on the best Chili

To get started, I’m introducing them to topics such as insulation, radiation and the greenhouse effect.

Next a session on designing and building a Solar Oven from a Pizza Box.

Finally, Ann Patterson from Solavore will be here to teach a class on Solar Cookers and the engineering principles behind it.

If you’re looking for solar oven recipes, here are some. I’m a big Chili Concarne fan. Solavore has some here, too.

As news gets weird, would you believe these stories?

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Is news getting more weird? Or do have more access to information we would have never known in a previous era?

Consider these. Fact or fiction?

Humans will soon travel at 760 miles an hour by ‘Hyperloop’

Machines will soon use people as batteries. Away for mobile devices to ‘grab’ energy directly from human skin.

Target to do away with Men’s and Women’s clothing departments.

Solar plane, with a wider wingspan than a Boeing 747 can fly around the world at a whopping 28 miles per hour. (Perfect for people too scared to use the aforementioned Hyperloop.)

Sean Parker offers US govt. a tool called ‘Brigade’ that will ensure 100 percent civic participation in the upcoming US election.

Fact or Fiction?

The Hyperloop m ode of transportation is very possible. Anything by Elon Musk ought to be taken seriously.
Here’s the ‘batteries from skin’ story from the University of Singapore. It sure sounds like the Matrix, harvesting humans to run machines. I could not have made this up!
Target hasn’t gone this far. However, it did announce a policy whereby Men’s and Women’s bathroom will be open to a person who identifies with that gender.
Solar aircrafts are being tested. Fascinating even if you are skeptical about alternative energy.
Sean Parker is a ‘disruptive’ kind of philanthropist. While he did found a civic engagement too called Brigade, I made up the part about promising the govt 100% civic engagement in elections. Dream on!

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Angelo Fernando's blog since 2004

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Cooking with sunshine in Arizona

Solar Oven STEM project – Chili Cook-Off!