Re: Fw: "Worlds Fastest Stove" Contest

["richard stanley" <legacyfound@hotmail.com>]

Dear stovers,
Reading what Tom Reed and others have suggested about practical application 
of the stove, may I suggest that we let the actual user be the judge of the 
stove ? Either we are testing technologies for technical preformance or we 
are testing for practicality. It is not that one cannot include the other, 
It is about the choice of the direction we want to go with our efforts.

We could for example select say five rural communities over latin america, 
africa and asia for their diversity in cooking applications, yet similarity 
of need for improved cookstoves.

Each stove would (perhaps on meeting basic technical criteria such as 
discussed already) then be replicated 5 times and sent to the 5 different 
communities under the direction of any one of the group who was  already 
proximate to /familiar with the community.  I would suggest we do not try to 
tell the stove tester what to test for, or even what results we are looking 
for, only that the testor use the stove and advise us in its usefulness and 
how it might be improved as part of a joint effort. We cannot easily apply 
standarised pot sized or material types or barometric pressure but that is 
really for us to determine not necessarily the actual user's concern.

This approach may provide some very interesting information. It would at 
minimum provide fodder for a serious multivariate assessment, and whether or 
not it led to a "winner or loser", it would begin to unlock the complexity 
of actual applications in the real 3rd world which so often defeats the best 
of technology driven development efforts

What do you all think ?

Richard Stanley





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