Solar decathlon team almost ready for competition
Team will hold open house Saturday
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After two years of hard work, the ISU Solar Decathlon team will show off its solar-powered home one last time Saturday before transporting it to competition in October.
The open house will be held from 2 – 5 p.m. Saturday at 1220 Southern Hills Drive.
The team has been building an energy-efficient, solar-powered house for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. since January 2008. The competition consists of 20 teams from around the world, and the houses will be judged in 10 contests to determine an overall winner. Some of these contests include architecture, net meeting, comfort zone and lighting design.
The competition is a three-week contest that attracts anywhere from 100,000 – 200,000 people. The first week of the contest is dedicated to the construction of the house. Each team entered will have seven days to completely rebuild its entire house. After the scoring is completed and an overall winner is declared, the teams will have four to five days to disassemble it and ship it back to Iowa.
Team members said being involved with the project has been beneficial.
“I think that connection I have had with the other departments has given me respect for the other departments and a better understanding, and helped me communicate with the other departments,” said Clark Colby, student leader and senior in architecture, “I think it’s extremely important to get involved in all types of projects, including this one, because of the opportunity to learn.”
Out of all the teams, Tim Lentz, project engineer and graduate student in mechanical engineering, said he feels they will do well.
“I think we’ll be in the top five. I think we will definitely do well in energy balance, because you get points for breaking even on energy, and then you get bonus points for extra energy we produce that we don’t need. We’re definitely set there, because our house is extremely efficient and our house produces twice the power it needs. Basically, it’s going to compensate for a whole other house.”
As the ISU Solar Decathlon team went into the competition, members were met with a few challenges. Lentz said one of the biggest obstacles they had to deal with was getting the engineers, architects and the rest of the team to work together as they all expressed different directions and approaches.
Eric Berkson, senior in architecture and the team’s IT coordinator, said the state of the economy also made the project a challenge.
“There’s been a lot of things, but something we never considered when going into this project was how tough the economy would be and how tough it would be to get donations both of cash and of products in time that we could put into the house.”
Fortunately, the decathlon team was able to get a number of sponsors to help by asking various groups and businesses to donate money and materials. Additionally, more than $100,000 was funded for the project by Ames Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The open house will be held from 2 – 5 p.m. Saturday at 1220 Southern Hills Drive.
The team has been building an energy-efficient, solar-powered house for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. since January 2008. The competition consists of 20 teams from around the world, and the houses will be judged in 10 contests to determine an overall winner. Some of these contests include architecture, net meeting, comfort zone and lighting design.
The competition is a three-week contest that attracts anywhere from 100,000 – 200,000 people. The first week of the contest is dedicated to the construction of the house. Each team entered will have seven days to completely rebuild its entire house. After the scoring is completed and an overall winner is declared, the teams will have four to five days to disassemble it and ship it back to Iowa.
Team members said being involved with the project has been beneficial.
“I think that connection I have had with the other departments has given me respect for the other departments and a better understanding, and helped me communicate with the other departments,” said Clark Colby, student leader and senior in architecture, “I think it’s extremely important to get involved in all types of projects, including this one, because of the opportunity to learn.”
Out of all the teams, Tim Lentz, project engineer and graduate student in mechanical engineering, said he feels they will do well.
“I think we’ll be in the top five. I think we will definitely do well in energy balance, because you get points for breaking even on energy, and then you get bonus points for extra energy we produce that we don’t need. We’re definitely set there, because our house is extremely efficient and our house produces twice the power it needs. Basically, it’s going to compensate for a whole other house.”
As the ISU Solar Decathlon team went into the competition, members were met with a few challenges. Lentz said one of the biggest obstacles they had to deal with was getting the engineers, architects and the rest of the team to work together as they all expressed different directions and approaches.
Eric Berkson, senior in architecture and the team’s IT coordinator, said the state of the economy also made the project a challenge.
“There’s been a lot of things, but something we never considered when going into this project was how tough the economy would be and how tough it would be to get donations both of cash and of products in time that we could put into the house.”
Fortunately, the decathlon team was able to get a number of sponsors to help by asking various groups and businesses to donate money and materials. Additionally, more than $100,000 was funded for the project by Ames Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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