Stage+1-+Getting+Acquainted+with+Prickly+Pear

__**Stage 1: Getting Acquainted with Prickly Pear:**__

What we did:
 * scissors (tried to cut off the prickles)
 * pliers (in a circular motion to pull the prickle out)
 * scraper (good for peeling skin and digging the prickles out-but when we peeled the skin off of the plant, it broke apart more easily, falling into our juice container; pete said that isn’t necessarily a bad thing)
 * lighter (prickles burned off easily, but if we were trying to do this for mass amounts of cacti it wouldn’t be ideal)
 * made somewhat natural bricks with leaves, corn stalk, and prickly pear juice (leaving them in the sun until next week to see if it ends up working as a binder).

Our next step:
 * Bring a cheese grater, blender, strainer and paper towel technique; we could maybe blend what we grated to make it easier to work with; want to bring some materials for natural/adobe bricks, experiment with bamboo (layering bamboo and prickly pear plant to see if it is a strong hold).

Questions we want to explore:
 * Boiling the plant: will this denature the binding chemicals or could it be a useful method?
 * What amount of the juice would be needed for it to be useful? Which method of extraction would be the most feasible for a large scale utilization of prickly pear juice?
 * Where could this technology be useful? (ei: where is the plant abundant that would be willing to try the technology)
 * How sticky does the juice need to be?
 * What method gets the most juice per 10-12 x 5" piece of cactus leaf?
 * How much juice is needed to work?
 * How concentrated does the juice need to be?
 * Are there other plants we could use?

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