Inside a house in the Dominican Republic near the Haitian border,
women can be found tending oven fires to cook for their families. The smoke
from the fire can be a health hazard, and the cost of fuel can be expensive.
Outside the house, the sun shines long and hot. If only there was a way to
harness this free energy to cook.
This was the problem Mary Hitchcock, an eighth-grader at St.
Timothy School in Chantilly, set out to address with her STEM Fair project.
This year for the first time, St. Timothy School hosted a STEM
Fair instead of a science fair. The brainchild of Leslie Lipovski, the diocesan
assistant superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, tasked
students with doing STEM-focused projects using either the engineering or
scientific method. Then the eighth-graders displayed their findings using
digital media.
“I was totally blown away,” said Nicole Testanie, the school’s
STEM Fair coordinator. “They took our vision and made it a reality.”
Using the engineering method, Hitchcock researched and designed
eight prototypes until she had a solar oven that could reach 180 degrees
Fahrenheit.
She used wood, painted black, to create an open top box, and
lined the interior of the box with tin foil. Her early prototypes did not reach
the necessary temperatures. After researching the problem, she decided to
insert a smaller cardboard box, also wrapped in foil, inside the wood box. In
the gap between the wood and cardboard box she stuffed crumpled newspaper for
added insulation. She inserted a wire grate on the floor of the cardboard box
to keep a pot from burning a hole in the bottom. She added reflectors to later prototypes by
using hanger wire and foil, which increased the surface area reflecting the sun’s
rays into the oven.
At the early April fair, she successfully cooked a pot of soup
using her solar oven.
Her goal is to perfect the design until it can reach more than
200 degrees Fahrenheit. Once she has a prototype, Hitchcock hopes to test the
solar oven’s effectiveness in Bánica. Because a solar oven takes longer to cook
food than a traditional oven, it cannot replace the stove completely. But used
correctly, it could decrease the time and money families burn by using gas or
wood stoves exclusively.
The rising ninth-grader will attend Paul VI Catholic High School
in the fall and is working with a group from the school to help transport her
oven to Bánica when they go on their summer mission trip. The oven will be
disassembled for easy transportation and then reassembled once it arrives.
“Being able to help people around the world inspired me to do
this project,” said Hitchcock. “I really enjoy cooking, so being able to take
that interest and help others is what made me want to do it.”