Pizza Box Project

Recently, I have a project, which is to design a Pizza box that can keep heat the best and be the most convenient.
To achieve this, I need to meet three criteria: first, retain heat for at least 15 minutes; second, the box must not be too airtight to avoid danger and difficulty in opening the box; third, it must be done in a way that saves as much money as possible in production.

Therefore, the last two criteria are probably fine, but for the first criterion, I will have to do a few experiments to make sure I am on the right track.

The first experiment

First, I will try to see what 46°C will be like after 15 minutes.

First of all, because there was no pizza, I had to go down to the convenience store near my house to buy a box of hot buns. I tried to get home as quickly as possible because I was afraid the buns would lose their heat. To my surprise, when I got home and measured the temperature of the bun, it was 52°C, making me wait nearly 15 more minutes for the buns to “cool down” a bit.

Then, I used the thermometer to measure again: Finally, the perfect number 46°C.

Then, I immediately put the bun into the box and closed the lid, setting the timer for exactly 15 minutes to return right after.

Although I would admit that the thermometer I bought is indeed very compact, convenient, quick, and suitable for cooking, but waiting for it to give an accurate temperature still takes quite a bit of time.

Lost in random thoughts, I suddenly heard the phone ring that I had set earlier.
After 15 minutes, I opened the box of buns. It was still slightly steaming, only instead of the thick smoke clouds, there were faint, barely noticeable wisps of smoke.

I tried using the thermometer and stood waiting as it went through each number, rising and falling (like my exam scores) unpredictably, to get the most accurate result. Fortunately, the final temperature it gave was exactly 37,4°C. Although it was not within the perfectly desired range, I was still quite satisfied because it was close to my calculations.

The second experiment

After the first trial, I drew a few lessons for myself: First, not to be in a hurry; second, to measure the temperature in the same position; third, to wait until the number on the thermometer remains still without moving, only then is it the correct temperature.

For the same reason, with the second cake, I still patiently waited for it to cool down to exactly 43°C, and then still put it in the box as usual. But the difference was, when opening the box, I was no longer in a rush to ‘stumble’ but took my time to measure the temperature at the right spot. Therefore, after the thermometer stabilized, the temperature dropped to 39,4°C, exactly as I thought.

Initially, I requested that this cake box be able to retain heat after 15 minutes, with a maximum loss of only 10°C. Therefore, this experiment can also be considered beyond my expectations.

The third experiment

However, to finish the project, I continued to measure the temperature of the bun to see what it would be after 15 minutes at 40°C. Therefore, I went out to buy a bun for my experiment.

Just like the previous two times, my steps of experiment and temperature measurement were the same. It’s just that this time, after 15 minutes, the result I received was 35,3°C.

Although this is not a bad result, I still feel that it seems to have lost more than the previous time. Perhaps the reason for this is, first, that I was more hasty than before, and second, that last time I used a phone as a weight to hold down the box lid, but this time I did not.

To end up

This time my CREST project is more effective than before, but there are still some aspects that need improvement.
As for me, perhaps I should also try again with a different type of food and a different design of the box?

(By the way, this is the link of my project’s report: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MSxPVFBJ9vRB0uhht8LxlDFVIdxyEz8x )