Solar Hot Dog Cooker!

Solar Hot Dog Cooker based on designs from Boys' Life magazine September 2008 pg. 40

We are inscribing a curve on the inside of a cardboard box. This circle has a 24" radius. That means the the focus is 1/2 the radius so the hot dog should be placed 12" above the foil.

We cut out the curve and used the cut out as a template for the other side.

We then laid the poster board on the box and traced it.

J cut out the poster board and covered it with sliver reflective tape.

We then attached the foil to the box.
We used the scraps to make the side supports to hold the hot dog. They are perpendicular to the curve. We made a hole for the skewer 12" above the surface and several other holes to experiment with.
The finished product next to the instructions from Boys' Life.

We should have done this yesterday when the sun was blazing hot. Today the clouds were beginning to build in late afternoon.
For our latitude the cooker should be at a 33-degree angle. We were unsuccessful and the hot dog was only increasing in temperature about 1 degree per minute.
After changing the angle to about 57-degrees we could visibly see the sun striking the hot dog more intensely. This increased the cooking speed to about 2.5-degrees per minute.
J used his lego motor and gears to construct a rotisserie device.
We are definitely going to try this again with several design improvements. We got too hungry to wait for our slow solar cooker and resorted to the electric stove!

Helpful links:
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/solardogs.html
http://worldwatts.com/hotdogs/solar_hotdog_cooker.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-solar-hot-dog-cooker/

52nd Annual Shelby Hamfest....in Dallas, NC!

Today we went to the annual Shelby Hamfest (Amateur Radio). It was a very very very hot/humid day. Towards the end we did get a little cloud cover that made eating this delicious hot greasy funnel cake bearable. We found some good deals and had a good time, but were very happy to return home to cool showers and A/C!

Yearbook Yourself

We have been playing with Yearbook Yourself!

Cub Scouts Tiger Graduation to Wolf

J is officially a Wolf scout!

First day of second grade!

J had his first day of second grade today! He had a good first day at school and has a really nice teacher this year!

Estes Big Daddy

We have had a busy weekend with the raingutter regatta on Thursday, a cub scout camp out on Friday night, and a birthday party at the YMCA on Saturday. Tonight we painted our Big Daddy rocket. We have one week left of summer vacation before 2nd grade begins next Monday!

Raingutter Regatta

B-Wing fighter made from legos.

Indiana Jones flying an airplane.

a "p-47" dragon-wing fighter.

J with his raingutter regatta boat.

The raingutter regatta fleet.

One of our dogs cheering on the raingutter regatta race!

Yesterday was the Cub Scouts raingutter regatta race. J gets really excited about building the kits for the cub scout's derby races. He built his boat and painted it at the beginning of the summer! The raingutter regatta race is set up with two pieces of actual house gutters filled with water. On 'GO' the boys begin to blow on the sails. If the boat falls completely on it's side you are allowed to use your hands to right the boat. The first one to the end wins. It is a double-elimination race, so each boy gets to race at least twice. Our boat is straight out of the kit with no modifications. Next year we may try some design tweaks.

Microsoft Photo Story 3

This is my brief attempt at using microsoft photo story 3 (free download). The software was very simple to use. Unfortunately I do not have a microphone on my computer at the moment. The software is really geared for audio snippets with each picture, as opposed to background music as I have done. See Marshpotato's blog for a better example of photo story 3. For adding music and more advanced features I prefer the microsoft movie maker (also a free download).