Pragmatically, the inspiration for this project is drawn from a series of backpacking excursion I embarked upon with my brother and father two years ago, which in the end totaled approximately 120 miles. Now the golden maxim of backpacking is to pack frugally. So, every day as I repacked my backpack, I would glare angrily at the extra weight of fire by friction set material I had to carry with me because it made the overall weight of my bag very onerous. Then, as I trudged along the trails throughout the day, I started to mull over the idea of possibly constructing the optimal fire by friction set. The more and more I thought about it the more and more that I wanted to find the answer to this curious concept. Subsequently, when my junior year started, I decided that I had to investigate this query of mine, so immediately started doing some background research.

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• Chemistry
• Physics