I heard this was fake.
Do you have a link? There are many You Tube videos of parabolic mirror doing similar things.
That’s just silly. An Article could never be posted on the internet if it were fake.
The Mythbusters had an episode a few years back when they tried to emulate the myth of Archimedes burning Roman ships with his own death ray. They couldn't do it. They even asked a number of people including a prof and students from MIT to try and construct an effective death ray that would set a ship on fire. They couldn't do it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but some very smart people failed trying to make one. I'd like to see this kids model replicated. Too many things are faked on the internet.