TEAM 14: MARGARET FRAZIER, SOPHIE GOLDBERG, ABBY HUGHES, SARA MAGDALENA, ALDA ZENELI
TEAM 14: MARGARET FRAZIER, SOPHIE GOLDBERG, ABBY HUGHES, SARA MAGDALENA, ALDA ZENELI
In ENGS 21: Introduction to Engineering, our team of Dartmouth undergraduates worked to design, test, and develop a product to combat the issue of indoor air pollution and smoke inhalation from wood-fired stoves. Our all-female group wanted to solve a problem that largely impacted women, and ultimately chose to focus on innovating for rural communities with access to water and wood-fired stoves, but not electricity.
To test the specifications of the SanoStove, we conducted 3 main tests. The first was testing the Air Quality Index of air and smoke produced by a normal wood fire (comparable to what our users currently cook over), and by the SanoStove. As you can see below, the smoke produced from a normal wood fire was significantly higher than the smoke proudced by the SanoStove, even over a long period of time. Our stove successfully kept smoke out of the air, and kept AQI levels in a category that would be safe for our users.
We also tested the amount of time required to boil 3 quarts of water on the SanoStove compared to other cooking methods. Compared to a wood fire, the SanoStove takes about 2 minutes longer. This is not a significant loss of time, but can likely be attributed to a few different causes, all of which are easily solved with tweaks to the prototype or its use. First, we could make the pot holder shorter which would increase the heat transfer. Second, we could insulate the stove to make sure that no heat is lost from the sides of the device. Third, by using it inside and minimizing wind, less heat would be lost.
Finally, we conducted a series of user tests on both local users and potential users here. This gave us an idea of how easy the stove would be to use, and helped us understand how best to improve future iterations of the prototype.