Show-Me Solar Hanging In There At 10th Place

Four-time veterans of the solar decathlon will tell you that you can't handicap this race.
In '02 a copper box that as we recall, didn't work all that well, took 2nd place based largely on its architecture points, and Auburn's spectacular home was only middle-of-the-pack. Maryland's brilliant seashore home looked to be the team to beat in 2005 but was easily bested by S&T's craftsman-style gem. In 2007 there were several early contenders, over which Darmstadt's hi-tech home took top honors.
During construction week '09" a lot of people figured that Virginia Tech's sparkling, modernistic one-piece home was the team to beat, but now VT is just 2 points ahead of team Missouri and sleeper Illinois, whom we kidded about last week, is holding strong in 3rd place. Who'd a thunk?

Team Missouri has been hanging in there strong in the middle of the pack, despite a mediocre score in architecture, the achilles heel of all four Missouri solar homes. The Show-Me Solar partnership did pay the hoped-for dividend, a 10th-place finish in the communication category, an area that the Miners also struggled with in past Decathlons. Who knew that when Solar Decathlon founder Richard King walked through the S&T home last week and wished us luck, commenting something like we 'hadn't gotten a fair shake in previous architecture contests', that the trend wouldn't let up?

There are still three contests that have not been judged: Net Metering, Lighting Design, and Engineering, so let's keep our fingers crossed for Missouri to jump in the rankings.

In the meantime here are more of Sara's updates:

Day 4

"Terry McCalister came and took a tour of the house. He is the CEO of Washington Gas and says the company is planning on donating a total sum of $30,000 to us."

Day 5

We started out at 9th place.
Announcement of 2 of the 5 jury tour competitions.

Architecture - 18th
Market Viability - 11th

The results for the first dinner party (where teams host neighbors from other teams) were - 4.611/5 we were voted 5th out of 20
The results for the home entertainment were - 3.9/5 we were voted 9th out of 20. But we think that is only because we have an awesome 55 inch LED screen and people were jealous and didn't want to lose.

The second dinner was also served today consisting of a Chicken Spanini, Caesar salad with a homemade Caesar dressing, roasted potatoes, and a pumpkin parfait.

Who says engineers can't cook?