Gaining Ground

The ReForm team woke up this morning with six days left and smiles on their faces in preparation for the juries to come for a contest inspection of their houses. Close to 8:00 a.m. right after breakfast, the first set of three jurors came strolling up the ramp to critique the team on its architectural advances. Out of the ten contests, each team is required to design and build an attractive home utilizing solar and energy efficient techniques all incorporated in the home’s overall design. Each team can earn up to 200 point in this contest category, the most crucial one holding the most value among the other categories. ReForm team member and architecture grad student Nick Germann stopped to talk to our reporters about the morning’s judicial encounter.

“They were bland, but they gave a whole lot of feedback,” said Germann. “Hey, it was still early. I guess they were still asleep.” Keeping an open mind and sense of humor has been one of the major factors of keeping the team together in the heat of the moment according to Germann and his design teammates. Carl Sterner, another UC grad student studying architecture, stood at the top of the ramp to explain his feelings on today’s juries.

“Those jurors saw our exhibit and loved it, we really worked the exhibit design,” said Sterner “Most others use the batch mentality by escorting groups and all they end up getting is a quick view all at once, but generally the same information.”

Another teammate and interior design student, Tina Sevilla chimed in on this morning’s visitation from the jurors and her feelings on what they experience while there.

“They seemed really impressed,” said Sevilla. “The jurors loved the amount of natural lighting in the house. They also loved our rain screen. In fact, everyone who has come to see the house comes to see that screen.”

Next up, the jurors for the category of communication were introduced to a consistently impressive way of introducing certain aspects of the solar home. Sterner was on site again for this and gave us his thoughts later this afternoon.

“They loved our strategy,” said Sterner. “Then we were able to take them through one at a time to absorb it all in then allow each could ask questions.”

Sevilla caught a few jurors admiring the evacuated tubing set up and more.

“Those tubes kinda got us through it today,” said Sevilla. “People asked a lot about the evacuated tubing and actually powering the house.” Sevilla says the photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof create the solar home’s electricity, but most of the home itself relies on produced and converted thermal energy. Apparently, a marketing question came from the marketing viability jurors surrounding the manufacturers of the tubing. The answer was Sunda, a Chinese company which currently leads technology in the solar thermal field.

Stay tuned for more from Washington, D.C. as we continue gaining ground in the 2007 Solar Decathlon.