DAPHNE, Ala. — Spanish Fort Middle School student Mark Helms, 14, was honored by Daphne Utilities recently as the second recipient of the “Skye’s the Limit” environmental achievement award to the student whose science fair project is deemed the most exceptional in the field of environmental science.

Helms was honored for his gizmo that used unconventional means to cook hot dogs using only solar power.

Helms said he found the basic idea for his project online.

“I was actually searching the Internet for easy ideas for a science project and I was actually interested in specifically solar ‘something.’ Then I found three ideas for solar cooking, specifically. Then I asked myself, ‘Which one is best? Oh, wait — there is my question already. I went out and wrote all that and it is how I got the idea,” Helms said.

First, Helms built a cooker from a milk crate with directions he found online.

“I took an old milk crate for the box cooker and I lined it with cardboard. On the bottom of it I spray-painted it black, and on the sides I covered it in aluminum foil,” Helms said.

His second experiment used a pizza box.

“For the pizza box cooker, that was the simplest one. It was a pizza box with the inside lid covered up in foil and the base was covered with black paint,” Helms said.

Finally, he came up with his own idea and retrofitted his family’s old satellite dish.

“For the solar cooker, I just rubber-cemented aluminum foil onto a satellite dish and rolled it out so it would be smooth. We actually canceled our satellite (service) last summer and we just happened to have a spare satellite dish lying around so I thought, ‘Why not just use this?’” Helms said.

The experiments

“I did three different experiments. First off, I heated marbles up three times for every cooker, which took about 15 minutes. Then, I melted ice cubes, which took about an hour, and then I cooked the hot dogs which took 30 minutes,” Helms said.

He found out that on a cold February day, you can cook hot dogs within a few degrees of being completely cooked using only the power of the sun.

Through his experiment, he found the satellite dish to be the best way to cook a hot dog using solar power because the shape directed the sun’s rays.

“I learned that solar cooking a hot dog takes a lot more than a microwave. On a cold February day, there is just not enough sunlight to cook a hot dog. You can get really close —  close enough for it to be fine — but (the United States Department of Agriculture) says you shouldn’t eat it,” Helms said.

Accordingly, Helms said he didn’t get to enjoy the hot dogs he cooked.

“My parents wouldn’t let me eat them, and they were evidence,” he told members of the utilities board. 

Helms said he learned a lot from his experiment.

“If I were to do this project again, I would do it later in the year when it is warmer and I would also have made the surfaces of the tin foil smoother on the other two. I think it would cook it in about half the time if I tried to do it now since the temperatures are so high. It took 30 minutes to almost cook a hot dog without power in February,” Helms said.

The whole project took Helms about three weeks to complete, he said. His project made it to the regional competition, but not to the state level.

Teen interested in alternative energy

Helms’ science fair project idea was guided by his interest in alternative fuel sources and a practical application as well.

“I think alternative fuel sources are so important because eventually we are going to run out. All the fossil (fuels) will be gone, all the oil will be soaked out of the ocean and eventually we will just run out of things to use so we need something else,” Helms said. “For four weeks in the summer, I am going to New Mexico where you hike in the mountains for about 10 days out in the complete wilderness. Every three days you get food. It would be a lot easier if you could use the sun to cook.”

He may have already turned his project in, but Helms is not finished with his idea. He is interested in trying to cook other items as well.

“Next year in high school, they don’t push you to do any science projects, but I plan on building on that project and just keep trying to make it better and better. My main goal is to eventually go to state because there they hand out scholarships. I am really looking for that,” Helms said.

His dad has inspired him to ask questions and get in-depth answers.

“My dad really inspires me because he is the sort of person that, if you ask a simple question, he will go into every detail of it. I was really inspired to go into every detail of everything that I did to make it just that much better,” Helms said.

Helms favorite subject is not science, but he plans to pursue a career in the field.

“My favorite subject would have to be literature, which is kind of weird for a science person to say, but my mom is an English teacher. I want to be a mythology expert or an astronomer. I really want to be an astronomer because it sort of mixes my next favorite subject, science, with the mythology part of it,” Helms said.

Helms said he understands and appreciates how much the award can change his life.

“It means a whole lot. It is a lot more that I can put on my resume for a job, for college, it is just another thing to make me look better in the eyes of my boss, my principal, the community, it really means a lot,” Helms said.

“It still seems surreal to me to get this award because — dang — if I can get $200 for almost cooking a hot dog; people almost cook a hot dog in bad restaurants and they get a lot less than $200.”