Allow me the pleasure of introducing to you, the (temporarily named) Iron Butterfly!
Weighing in at a hefty 51kg, the Iron Butterfly has a reflective surface of 1.8m², and at an elevation of 370 meters above sea level is capable of boiling 4.5kg of water in 30 minutes while INcoming SOLar radiATION (insolation) averages 701 watts per meter squared. *deep breath* Built with 100% locally materials costing a total of 41,305 francs, roughly equal to 90$ Canadian, the Iron Butterfly will soon be showing off it's culinary capacities, it's cooking qualities and last but not least, it's 178 painstakingly positioned mirrors.
Thank you mister boxing announcer, sir, but to write the rest of the blog in your style would be silly, not to mention hard. How does a boxing announcer present scientific data like
and then explain that windspeed was constant at <2m/s, ambient temperature was 37degC and there was 4.5kg of water in the pot?
Right, so, as you've heard the Butterfly has had it's first test flight since we've come to some sort of stable design. It is a lot of work to build, and is heavier than I would have liked, but it is rock solid and durable.
I'll give a brief rundown of the construction process. You should already be familiar with the mold. Around the mold we have built a jig, which allows us to place the lengths of square tubing in the same place every time.
Upon the mold we place the mirrors, face down. In the center of each of the mirrors we place a square of sheet metal to which we have welded a small iron rebar stub. We then lay the lengths of square tubing on the jig and then weld the stub to the square tubing.
The result is the Iron Butterfly wing, minus the mirrors.
Apply glue to the wing.
Apply the wing to the mirrors.
Apply the wings to the structure, and then apply sunlight to the Butterfly and...
Voila!
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