What Is a Parabolic Oven?
2 Minutes
Parabolic solar cooker for kids: learn how a curved reflector focuses sunlight to cook food and heat milk without a stove. An English science lesson.
- Examples of parabolas like dish antennas and a thrown ball
- How aluminium foil on a curved dish reflects rays to a focus point
- Burning paper and heating milk at the focal point without a stove
What this lesson teaches
A parabolic oven is a curved cooking system that reflects and concentrates sunlight onto a single spot to produce enough heat for cooking without any stove or fire.
What a parabola is
In geometry, a parabola is a specific curved shape, just as a square, a rectangle, and a circle are shapes. People often see parabolas in everyday life. For example, the dish antenna mounted on a terrace has this exact shape. Another everyday example of a parabola is the curved path that a ball travels when someone throws it up high.
How the parabolic reflector works
A parabolic reflector is like an everyday household face mirror that has been bent into a curved shape. In this design, sheets of aluminium foil paper are stuck across the surface of a parabolic dish. The aluminium foil reflects the sunlight that falls on it. Because of the curved parabola shape, the rays hitting the dish bounce off and all meet together at a single point, which is called the focus point.
Cooking at the focal point
- The sun serves as a powerful fireball that provides heat for cooking.
- When the parabolic dish reflects the sun rays to a single focus point, that spot becomes extremely hot.
- Placing a piece of paper directly at the focal point proves the heat, as the paper quickly catches fire.
- Placing a cooking vessel at that same focal point allows someone to heat milk or cook food without a stove or fire.
Adult supervision and safety
- Testing the focal point generates extreme heat that can easily set materials on fire.
- Anyone who wants to make a parabolic reflector at home must always do it with the help of adults.
- Building or testing this reflector should never be done alone because of the dangerous heat created by the sun.