| DRAG | orbit the yard |
| SCROLL / PINCH | zoom |
| TIME BAR | scrub the sun across the sky |
| SPACE | play / pause the day |
| R | toggle light rays |
| B / T | build panel / results |
| G | parts list for this build |
Every beam enters on the same plane square to the sun, then follows the light: gold is sunshine your reflectors bounce onto the pot, pale straw is direct sun that needs no mirror at all, and dull red misses and bleeds away. Thicker, brighter beams carry more watts. Re-tilt until the gold crowds out the red.
The sun's position comes from your latitude, month, and clock time — the same sky you would stand under. Its brightness follows the air mass overhead. Every reflector is ray-traced against the pot, and the pot's temperature obeys a real heat balance: solar gain in, convection and glazing losses out.
Rice needs to hold roughly 95°C — about 25 minutes for white, 50 for brown. The chart shows whether your build gets there before the sun quits.
These designs are real: the panel cooker is a fold-up CooKit, the box cooker is the classic school-build, the dish is a village parabolic. A good box cooker genuinely reaches 120–150°C inside.
Safety: a real parabolic focus can char wood and hurt eyes in seconds — wear sunglasses, and park the dish facing down when unattended.
Every part in the workshop is something you can actually buy. GEAR lists the ones your current build uses, as Amazon searches (those are affiliate links).
No burner, no cord, no fuel — just a pot of rice and a very large fusion reactor 150 million kilometers away. Build a panel, box, or dish cooker, aim it at a physically simulated sun, and find out when dinner is actually ready.