For nations with large populations below the poverty line, especially those with significant rural populations, solar ovens might represent an affordable and, perhaps the only, feasible means of cooking, pasteurizing water, and drying food for preservation. Although solar ovens have been around for more than 50 years, their propagation and adoption has been very limited. Hindering widespread adoption, perhaps, is the lack of awareness in the communities as well as the lack of low-cost, regionally appropriate ovens that incorporate end user feedback into the design process. The objective of this work is to propose and illustrate a methodology to design and develop a regionally appropriate solar oven (with local materials, labor and user input) that can be mass-produced with low environmental impact. Following a phase/gate methodology, a student team gathered information from a rural community in Venezuela, and iterated/tested several designs until achieving the desired compromise between cost, performance, and environmental impact. This paper describes the entire design process, the resultant oven design, as well as the overall experience. A section on Life Cycle Assessment discusses the environmental implications of the processes involved in fabricating these ovens as well as of the end-of-life practices and disposal. This project was recipient of a first prize P3 (People, Planet and Prosperity) award by the Environmental Protection Agency.