Solar soup on the menu at this year’s AfrikaBurn
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A medieval style wagon with a parabolic mirror mounted on it to concentrate sunlight will be used to cook soup for hungry festival goers at this year’s AfrikaBurn festival from Monday next week. Revellers gather once a year in the Tankwa Karoo to create a temporary city of art, themed camps, costumes, music and other performances. This year, Prof. Paul Papka and physics students from the University of Stellenboch hope to increase awareness of solar energy by cooking soup in a 50 litre pot on the wagon. Papka says there is not much new in terms of the structure’s design.
The structure has already been taken to its final destination, where it will fittingly go up in flames with all other structures at the end of the festival.
The structure's parabolic mirrors, measuring 12 square meters, will concentrate sunlight on a surface of only 30 square centimetres to cook the soup. The cart on which the structure is mounted is nine meters long, eight meters wide and six meters high. The amount of energy being created is equivalent to the energy produced by three to four boilers. Papka said the project took a year to design and another three months to build. The entire structure was made from recycled materials.
The structure has already been taken to its final destination, where it will fittingly go up in flames with all other structures at the end of the festival.
The structure's parabolic mirrors, measuring 12 square meters, will concentrate sunlight on a surface of only 30 square centimetres to cook the soup. The cart on which the structure is mounted is nine meters long, eight meters wide and six meters high. The amount of energy being created is equivalent to the energy produced by three to four boilers. Papka said the project took a year to design and another three months to build. The entire structure was made from recycled materials.
