Did I read it right. UL is fifth overall but second out of actual colleges?
igeaux.mobi
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Did I read it right. UL is fifth overall but second out of actual colleges?
igeaux.mobi
So far, seems that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shammy
I just checked the website and it has us (University of Louisiana) as 4th
Only Universities are entered. A few of the teams have more than one school involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shammy
Just looked at the BeauSoleil wesbite and facebook page. Win or lose this is a real feather in the cap for UL. Well Done!!!! .~..~..~.
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UL's BeauSoleil Solar Home is ranked fourth in the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C.
Judging began Thursday and will conclude when the winner is announced next Friday. On Friday, the team was judged in the areas of market viability, architecture and communications.
"I think it went really well. We felt we were strong in all three of these categories," said Geoff Gjertson, faculty adviser for Team BeauSoleil, in a news release.
<center>The rest of the story
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The decathlon trains building professionals to help move solar technology forward.
WASHINGTON — A tidy village dedicated to the future of green, solar-powered living has taken over the heart of the National Mall, where 20 teams of college students are vying to see who can build the most appealing energy-efficient home.
The teams, from universities in North America and Europe, are competing in the Department of Energy's biennial Solar Decathlon, which runs through Oct. 18. The challenge: design and build a prototype house that can provide the comforts of home while generating all the energy residents need from the sun's rays. Teams get bonus points if they can produce surplus electricity and sell it back to the power company.
The transformation began Sept. 30, when the first flatbed trucks carrying building modules rolled onto the Mall across from the Smithsonian Castle.
Student-led teams, backed by professional builders, suppliers and advisers, turned the Mall into a feverish construction site from early morning until late each evening. They built sleek pyramids, rusty silos, reclaimed-water gardens, glassy boxes and shaded porches.
<center> <a href="http://mainebusiness.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=288414&ac=Business&hcode=pph" target="_blank">The rest of the story </a>
By ELIZABETH RAZZI, Special to The Washington Post
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Each house sports an electric meter that can run in reverse, giving the team credit for each kilowatt it can sell into the local electric grid.
A decathlon, of course, consists of 10 events. These
houses are being judged for their architecture, market viability, engineering, comfortable temperature and humidity, hot water production, appliances, entertainment, communication with the public, lighting design, and ability to produce at least as much energy as they consume.
The competition is designed to push solar technology forward – and to train the next generation of architects, engineers and other design pros to create homes that operate with nearly no carbon footprint, according to Richard King, who runs the project for the Energy Department.
"We don't know how to do it in the United States; otherwise we'd have solar houses all over the place," he said.
In the past three decathlons, students have learned from their competitors and incorporated winning ideas into subsequent designs.
"They learn from each other; they learn what really works," he said. "It's a wonderful iterative process of advancement."
He noted that several teams that competed in past decathlons have gone on to form their own energy technology companies. And some technologies used in previous entries, such as structural beams made of fast-growing bamboo, are already starting to be commercialized.
This year's contestants, chosen a year ago from 40 entries, were each awarded $100,000 from the Department of Energy to build the prototypes. That funding was supplemented by team fundraising and corporate sponsorships. From this point on, the teams are competing simply for bragging rights.
The teams have taken wildly different approaches to their designs. Some reflect how environmental conditions differ from Ontario to Arizona. Others reflect the teams' distinct priorities.
Several focus on cutting-edge technology, while others have tried to take off-the-shelf technology and produce a home that could be taken to the mass market quickly and affordably.
One example of the cutting-edge approach would be Team Spain's entry, built by Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. Unabashedly modern, the house sits under a large inverted pyramid that contains solar-electric panels and solar-heating water collectors.
The pyramid is attached to the roof with a ball-and-socket mechanism that pivots the pyramid to track the sun. The sides of the pyramid also reflect sunlight into the house through skylights.
Virginia Tech's house incorporates sliding-glass walls on the north and south faces. The walls can be opened and closed automatically by an in-house computer linked to indoor climate sensors and an outdoor weather station. The walls can also be operated by iPhone.
The house designed by Technische Universitat Darmstadt in Germany – the school that took top honors in the last decathlon, in 2007 – is outfitted with an 11.1-kilowatt photovoltaic system designed to produce twice as much energy as the house consumes. The shiny, black, two-story structure is covered with single-crystal silicon solar panels on the roof and abut 250 thin-film solar panels on all four sides.
By contrast, the University of Illinois and University of Louisiana at Lafayette teams have focused on designing homes that could be put into production quickly by modular-home builders and that hearken back to traditional architectural styles native to their areas.
The Illinois entry looks almost like a Shaker design in its simplicity. The exterior siding was reused from an old barn in northern Illinois, but indoors it features engineered bamboo laminate board that replaces traditional wooden studs to support the walls. The fast-growing bamboo, a type of grass, is a greener alternative to pine and other woods typically used in construction. The house is powered by a 9-kilowatt photovoltaic system.
The prototype built by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is designed to be a practical modular home that can withstand a major hurricane. It reflects traditional Cajun housing style by way of a "dogtrot" that cuts through the heart of the house.
A dogtrot is a covered breezeway, long used in Southern architecture, that keeps the hot kitchen separate from the cooler living and sleeping areas. This dogtrot is updated with transparent sliding doors that can enclose the area when residents want it for an indoor space or open it up to the breeze when they want to use it as a porch.
Cornell University's house stands apart from the other entries with its agrarian-looking design. The house consists mainly of three rusted, corrugated steel cylinders intended to reference the grain silos on upstate New York farms.
The house is powered by an 8-kilowatt photovoltaic system and features a custom-made computer driving the entertainment center.
One of the judges is Sarah Susanka, architect and author of "The Not So Big House" and other books that advocate multi-use spaces and high-quality materials.
Based on an early review of house plans, she said she was "blown away" by the creativity of this year's entries.
"I don't think many people have had the opportunity to tour well-designed smaller structures," Susanka said. "That's a real revelation to a lot of people."
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So now it looks like we are ranked 14th. Every other school has a point value for Hot Water, but we don't. Does that mean we don't have hot water?
Could be we weren't judged in that category yet. Or we don't have hot water...
So what's the prob?
In Louisiana room temp is hot water :p
We had sufficient hot water in terms of temperature and supply, the problem was that we fell just short of the required line pressure. Hot water will be judged again so we will have time to attempt a fix, and make up some points to close the gap.
Cajuns take 1st in - market viability!!!
Yes! ..O..Quote:
Originally Posted by KACajun
I know this is a sports forum, but......
Went to the DC Mall Sunday and saw UL's entry into the DOE solar house competion. UL took 1st this morning in the Media, need fans vote by text to win fan favorite.
Go to www.beausoleilhome.org for the text number and house number for voting. They also have a facebook page with info.
By the way, we (Balt/Wash Alumni Club) has our social Saturday evening with 8 of the BeauSoleil team attending.
They have put UL on the map in new areas. They deserve everyones congratulations.:h:
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The BeauSoleil Louisiana Solar Home was designed and built by Louisiana students for Louisiana residents. Judges for the Market Viability contest in the 2009 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon recognized that.
The University of Louisiana team placed first in the contest. Judges were looking for homes that answered the needs of their clients.
TEAM BeauSoleil designed for Louisiana residents who face harsh summers and hurricanes.
“The (BeauSoleil) house hit on all cylinders,” said Joyce Mason, Market Viability judge and vice president for marketing with Pardee Homes. “We were so impressed with the degree to which the team listened to their market. They didn’t impose their ideas or try to infer them upon their residents.”
The team is one of 20 university teams from across the globe competing in the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall. TEAM BeauSoleil is the only team from Louisiana to ever participate in this contest held every two years.
“We knew from the beginning that if we couldn’t bring this home to the people of Louisiana, we wouldn’t accomplish anything,” said Gretchen Lacombe Vanicor, BeauSoleil project manager. “We paid a lot of attention to our Cajun culture and produced a product that is viable.”
The house is designed to withstand hurricane-force winds and to be totally self-sufficient, which makes it especially ideal for coastal environments.
It also reflects key elements of Louisiana's rich culture, including its world-famous Cajun cooking. At the same time, it represents an architectural heritage that developed after Acadians, who were exiled from Nova Scotia by the British in the 1700s, settled in south Louisiana. The result is a simple, modest, but highly functional 800-square-foot structure.
The BeauSoleil Home design incorporates several aspects of early Cajun cottages. For example, it emphasizes wide exterior porches for social interaction and casual entertaining, as well as movable exterior doors in the '”dog-trot” that make access to the outside easy. The home also has a large kitchen that is the cultural center of the home. Good conversation and great food, important elements of Louisiana's culture, flow naturally from this functional space.
This structure accommodates Louisiana’s sometimes-challenging climate. Long, hot summers are the norm, so the BeauSoleil Home takes advantage of natural breezes and utilizes several dual-purpose shutters, while collecting its own water and generating more energy than it uses.
<center> from KATC facebook
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I think this is the most important category. After all, what good are all the bells and whistles if nobody will buy the thing.
igeaux.mobi
I am with you, this catagory should count for double the points.Quote:
Originally Posted by cjr3888
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Out of 20.....ouch! At least we went and competed.
igeaux.mobi
Don't forget these was the playoffs. So what if we were one and done. These was the playoffs. Top-20 baby.
UL wins the People's Choice Award! That and Market Viability 1st place. I'd say those are pretty big even though the final tally wasn't what we all wanted. Going down to the Mall in DC to congratulate the team.
Tom
And all that is with no points in Net Metering and basically no points in Hot Water.
#1 in Market viability and #1 in what people like and want. Believe it or not those are not the same even if they must go hand in hand for ultimate success in the market place.Quote:
Originally Posted by tjubb
Congrats on any who text messaged and helped UL win the People's Choice Award.
ps this reminds me of FedEx and Raising Canes. Not the best grade with doubters but very successful companies.
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Originally Posted by Turbine
We were in the top 4 at one point. How/why did we fall to #19?
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