Fresnel who?!?!

We found an online thing on how to make a solar oven to bake cookies outside.  Otter got the directions for it and eagerly started cutting the box up.  Then he came to the part of a "fresnel lens."  What!?!?  I had no clue what this was and found online that has oh so many uses, first used in lighthouses.  It is a magnifier as well, apparently quite popular with the far-sighted elderly population for reading.  We had quite a bit of fun when it arrived in the mail.  Not only is it good for lighting the path for sea vessels, magnifying large-print books, and making cookies outside, but, man oh man can it make some already goofy faces even goofier.

Yes, Otter did get the solar oven made with the lens.  But he didn't make cookies, he made a melted cheesey-delciousness ham concoction of some sort.  And we thanked Augustin-Jean Fresnel for making that technology possible.