First new improved cook stove

Today we met one of our Self Help cluster groups with a view to getting their ideas on a cook stove to replace the thousand year old three stone method of cooking. We also invited our womens conservation farming group.
I first gave them the science bit in terms of the objective of the exercise, namely how to cook nsima with the least amount of wood which women and girls spend hours collecting each day.
Bottom line of the design is to direct as much energy as possible to the pot, and allow as little as possible to escape as flames or heated gases. I was of course not surprised at their sharp minds and attention to every detail.
They has no problem with the idea of insulation and how to achieve it and the final piece of the jigsaw was their idea; the need to help them to hold the pot while stirring the semi solid mass. But the solution for this is also a component in the stoves efficiency.
They have committed to having 200 stoves in their villages by one week, which I have no doubt they will at zero financial cost, but a big saving in fuel.
The basis of the design comes from a stove we have on our farm in Lusangazi for three years now and the idea came with students from NRC, The Natural Resources College, in Lilongwe who send us interns to our farm for practical learning.
Now we are back to a shed in the factory to look at and measure efficiencies of a number of modified copies. I feel the basic structure may well remain, but we will fiddle around with materials, mixes including ash, sawdust, some fine grass choppings, cow dung, mud, sand and generally do a little messing, like small kids, a pity three year old grandson Max isn't here.
The final say on the most appropriate and acceptable design will be from these very influential women who will do the test flights!!
This was the simple bit, but there is enough mud under my nails to sow carrots. The trials will be exacting and precise, weighing, measuring, collecting, analysing. We will be testing efficiency against their thousands year old, gold standard!! Someone has to have fun!