Lord Wandsworth student helps prevent cholera with cooker

Seventeen-year-old Thomas Hu, from Lord Wandsworth College, and his friends were inspired to create a parabolic solar cooker after hearing news of a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe.

The infection is caused by consuming food or water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria, which affects many with mild to moderate symptoms, but can be lethal within hours.

Thomas said: “We decided to make a product that could boil water easily. Firewood is an unsustainable energy resource and, because of deforestation, people in Zimbabwe often have to travel long distances to access it. Their electrical supply is unreliable and expensive, and so we came up with the idea of designing a solar cooker.”

Thomas with the solar cooker in Zimbabwe(Image: Lord Wandsworth College/Thomas Hu)

The cooker looks similar to an inverted umbrella and works by concentrating light via its mirrored surface onto a single focal point, which can heat water to boiling point within 15 minutes, and costs around £11 to make.

The friends came up with initial plans in the summer of 2024 and travelled to Zimbabwe to show their prototypes to the villagers.

Thomas said: “Most of them had never seen a product like this, and they were very impressed. We left them with the models we made, along with the blueprint for the designs. Now they can boil water a lot more easily than using more conventional methods.”

The parabolic solar cooker(Image: Lord Wandsworth College/Thomas Hu)

The group has now created a second, more efficient model with an aluminium frame and glass fibre, which they demonstrated in a second trip to Zimbabwe.

Thomas said: “We arranged for 100 solar cookers to be transported there. We donated 25 of them to the National Council of Disabled Persons of Zimbabwe (NCDPZ) and 25 to three hospitals and two schools.

“The remaining 50 will support a ‘business to philanthropy’ framework, where local partners and government officials will work together to retail the cookers locally, using the income to sustain the programme in the longer term.”

Thomas Hu(Image: Lord Wandsworth College/Thomas Hu)

For the team, their motivation is not for financial gain from the solar cooker; they want to help solve a problem.

Thomas said: “We have registered a utility patent for our designs, but we don’t want to make money from it. To me, this is about engineering and designing a solution to a problem.

“Engineering relates to real life and can help people. It can heal and provide better living conditions for those who also have big dreams.”