A great little design for great big trips away.
Camping as a child with my parents, my only worry was if I packed haw hawek (my toy dog, woof woof in Polish), completely oblivious to all the interesting nicks and nacks that my parents had to bring. On a recent adventure to the Isle of Mull, I came across this great stove design which ticked all our boxes; compactable, lightweight, adaptable and of course.. cheap!
Function
So how does this brilliant little thing work? After taking it out of the casing, the metal hands are smoothly extended by pulling in a circular motion. Their final positions are indicated through a sharp clicking noise and feel. The part is then tightly twisted onto the top of a gas canister. Once fixed, the gas is released by twisting the fixed side lever clockwise and pressing the in-built piezo ignition lighter, a change of noise from sharp hissing to a steady blow indicates it is ready to use.
Orange Polythene Packaging
The orange polyethene casing measures 10.2 x 10.1 x 7.1 cm and weighs 180g , making it smaller and lighter than my iPhone! It fit perfectly into my backpack's side pocket, making it great for us student campers who do not have a car and need to carry all their belongings throughout their trip. A great design for all kinds of campers.
As the Isle of Mull is in Scotland, we did experience some heavy rain on our trip. The plastic packaging ensured that the product did not get wet in the rain, despite being exposed in the side pocket of my bag. As a sustainable person, I was disappointed that non-recyclable plastic was used within the design, but its lightweight and waterproof properties did make it the ideal material.
With little light during the night, its bright orange packaging made it impossible to lose. It's small and it's used outdoors, it cannot blend with the rest of the campsite. Whether coincidental or not, this aspect of the design stands out as great due to every aspect of its usage being thoroughly assessed by the designer.
Adaptability
I strongly believe that great design is inclusive within the target market. The target market is campers; campers are also a wide range of people with different needs and abilities.
Tactile Indication When ON
The tactile indication of the 'click' feeling when spinning the handle grips into place, makes this product inclusive for people who are hearing impaired. One of my friends on the trip does have hearing problems and with high winds, she could not hear the click nor the hissing of the stove. The tactile property mentioned allowed her to independently set up the stove for morning coffee yet did not feel comfortable enough to turn it on. As someone who has grown up using only electric stoves, I find gas cookers also terrifying. Is it actually on? Am I inhaling the gas? Will the fire spread? Some may call me a hypochondriac but these are common fears I share with fellow electric stovers. To make this design more inclusive for users like my friend and myself, I would like to see some form of an in-built indicator that everything is working and safe to use, even a simple UV powered LED light.
Fitting Pots and Pans
The stove in itself as a product is great but how well does it adapt to a variety of pots and pans? I have camped solo, with friends, with family and with family friends, with a bigger group of people comes a bigger need for the amount of food and water to be cooked. The supporting legs of the stove have little teeth that gripped onto our variety of pots and pots, albeit size they did stay on but the bigger the pan the less stable it felt to use. Perhaps the teeth helped to stabilise the cookware yet did not support it enough to completely stay still with a wider diameter, would comprising the small size of the stove help with this issue or defeat its purpose? Albeit the stabilisation, the adjustable control valve allowed for fast maximum heat output all the way down to a simmer as quickly and efficiently as a kettle. For big camping groups and hungry little kids, this comprises its stabilisation issues with great efficiency.
Piezo Ignition Lighter (PIL)
Evaluating this stove taught me that piezo ignition uses the principle of piezoelectricity, which is the electric charge that accumulates in some materials in response to mechanical deformation. It consists of a small, spring-loaded hammer which, when a button is pressed, hits a crystal of lead zirconate titanate. This sudden forceful deformation produces a high voltage and subsequent electrical discharge, which ignites the gas.
The benefits of using a PIL are not only efficiency and compactability as a lighter does not need to be packed but also ensures weather resistance. Aside from torrential rain, we also experienced yellow-warning-level wind (thankfully this was only for one morning). The stove passed the test as even without a stone wall as shelter, the stove still lit and did not go out throughout around 20 minutes of cooking.
Conclusion
I don't think design should be perfect for everyone, there are always going to be areas to improve for specific individuals. In this case, I would like to improve on an indicator which shows that the gas is lit and the product is safe to use. On the other hand, I was fascinated by this design and aspects of how easy it was to transport, use, and how quickly everything was to set up. I do believe this is a great design for campers who are travelling light and need a quicker way to cook food than over a campfire, I have recommended it to anyone I know who is going on a camping trip.
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