While browsing around the interwebs, I came across the fact that Frensel lenses have a great ability to focus sunlight. Naturally, I was surprised to find that such a great invention is being so under-utilized. (kind of like deck prisms which have just been "discovered" recently)
Anyhow, it turns out that these powerful lenses can be found in projection televisions, and best of all, people give these things away on Craigslist, because the TVs are broken.
A rather devilish plan came to me: why not melt aluminum cans in to small ingots? Sure, the use of these ingots would be rather limited, but you never know!
A quick trip to YouTube confirmed that things like steel could be melted with a lens about the size of a television, it has a melting point about twice that of Aluminum.
And now comes the really cool part: maybe it could be automated, an Arduino to track the sun and move the lens, a chute to feed aluminum cans, and some kind of a pot to catch the molten metal.
I like the idea of dumping the liquid in to a muffin tin, ensuring the metal comes out properly, although it could simply be poured back in to another soda can with the lid removed.
If for nothing else, the ingots could be used to save space while you gathered enough cans to take them to the recycling center.
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