Twinkies turn into fiery black husks in a few focus light, and the software supplies the exact
minutes. A Clue board game bursts into flames. A angles Giersch needs. He built small wooden
Richard Simmons video melts into a sticky plastic bases for each mirror, with the correct corres-
glob. As a concept, it’s funnier than a Letterman ponding angle, and used a compound miter saw
stunt — and based on real science. Readers of with an onboard protractor to cut the blocks
Solar Death Ray can suggest any object at all, and quickly. The blocks screw into the frame along
Louis Giersch, a 26-year-old grad student, will eight concentric circles from the plywood’s cen-
obligingly expose it to 1,000-degree temperatures ter. Mastic adhesive glued on 3½-inch mirrors.
in a homegrown, 112-mirror solar concentrator. An improved Death Ray is currently in planning,
The site’s highlight may be its hilarious post-ray boasting a suntracker and motors to automatic-
writeups, which read like mock lab notes, but it ally position it for the greatest solar blast. It
was Giersch’s attention to detail that made the sounds like the ultimate weapon of mass destruc-
Death Ray work at all. (The hosts of a recent Myth tion, but not for use in Portland maybe. “I’ve
Busters episode tried to build a concentrator, but stored up a whole bunch of stuff that I really want
couldn’t properly focus the mirrors.) to burn,” says Giersch, “but clouds keep coming
Giersch, who studied plasma spacecraft propul- up out of nowhere. I got halfway through a Rubik’s
sion at the University of Washington, started by cube, and it just sort of petered out.”
writing an application in the Matlab visualization —Bob Parks
language. Mirrors on the 4'x6' backboard have a
tolerance of 0.5 degrees either way to properly >>Solar Death Ray: solardeathray.com
Photograph by Louis Giersch
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