Indonesia
5 Inventors Who Make Cozy Home (2)
Japan Soldier, invented Rice Cooker
It turned out the way rice cooker worked had been known since early 20th century. In 1937, Japanese soldier began to apply the basic principal of electric rice cooking device. This device was constructed by a wooden anti-leak container and a metal plat heater with power. The metal plat served to heat up the wooden container that previously
was filled with rice and water.
The wooden container must be heated up with the heater metal for some time, cooking the rice inside it. At that time, the process to turn paddy rice in edible rice took quite some time because the container was not equipped with a lid. As the result, the hot steam produced by the boiling water was wasted out.
To shorten the time consumption, the container was equipped with a lid, maximize the hot steam inside the
container and the rice cooked faster. The perfection then gave idea for Mitsubishi to mass producing the contraption. In 1945, the company began manufacturing and selling the product.
If the Japanese soldier came up with wooden container, Mitsubishi enhanced this appliance with aluminum base. This way, the heat distribution inside worked to maximum. The result was, rice got cooked very fast. In addition, the steam was trapped because the lid was tight, making the rice cooked even faster.
However, this innovation was not the end line for rice cooker. In 1956, Toshiba upgraded the device significantly. Along the time, the device managed to penetrate the market and got perfection. What originally designed only to cook rice, can now warm it up, and also vegetables and the power source remain the electricity.
Percy Le Baron Spencer, invented Oven Microwave
Do you know what is microwave oven, Superkids? well it turned out the device was invented incidentally by th inventor Percy Le Baron Spencer, in Boston, US 1946.
Percy Le Baron Spenser was a great American inventor who already had 120 patents for his invention. Spencer was born in a farmer family in a sub urban town, Howland, Maine, US. At the age of 12, Spencer worked in a local industry and began fascinated with electricity. In 1910, a paper company hired the 16 years old Spencer to set his first electric
system. He obtained the skill autodidact because he never got any lesson from any school or teacher. It’s Spencer’s determination and hard work that lead him to acknowledge as a top electrician.
So how was the story of Spencer invented microwave oven? It began when he was researching radar ability at Raytheon defensive institution in 1945. He was standing by an active magnetron, when suddenly the chocolate inside his pocket melted. Being intelligence as he was, Spencer came to think that it might be a micro wave. He then performed other experiments with corn and an egg which exploded.
From those little experiment, Spencer came into conclusion it’s the energy from the micro electromagnetic wave (microwave), emitted from the magnetron that cooked those meal, faster than stove. Eventually, Spencer started a series of more serious experiments. He built magnetron tubes, design the oven and other supporting equipments.
When the design was completed, in early 1947, the microwave oven was introduced to people for the first time. The microwave oven was named radarange. You must think that the name was quite odd, don’t you Superkids? It was because magneutron came from radar. The size was huge with weigh 400kg and cost US $ 5.000.
In 1965, Amana introduced the microwave oven for the first time for household purposes with price below US$500. From there, the microwave oven doesn’t stop to develop, from size, price and function. Today, microwave oven is commonly used in society.
NURUL L. IRFAN
FOTO: THINKSTOCKS PHOTOS
