PR Chief Sara Schafer tells us that the Solar Decathlon is more than just 20 houses, it is a community complete with neighbors that come to visit and even score a free dinner. Your team's guests get to rate your hospitality, assign scores to your team's cooking skills, and even covet your big-screen TV.
We'll let Sara provide her own play-by-play:
"Day 3 was a very interesting day here in D.C. We started the day off as a normal day with a hot water draw and temperature and humidity testing at 7:30 in the morning. We then cleaned up from the dinner party we had the night before. One of the contests includes each house having 2 dinner parties and to entertain the three other houses in our 'neighborhood.' Bryan Glass, Ben Brannon, Anna Osbourne, and Andrew Adams prepared a phenomenal meal for the others. People raved about the Cobb burgers, roasted vegetables, a strawberry salad and most of all about the homemade vanilla ice cream we served. While they entertained at our house, six of us also went to the other houses. Amber Gomaz and I went to Louisiana's house to enjoy some authentic Cajun cuisine. After talking with six other decatheletes about their experiences so far, it made me feel like our student led team (consisting of only undergrads and no help from contractors) was doing VERY good. After going around the table, we by far had the less expensive house, got the most sleep during the construction week, and were far less worried about the jury tours that we gave earlier that day. All in all, I think we are doing pretty well after hearing all their stories.
Anyway back to day 3. The day went very smoothly and we gave a lot of tours. The best comment of the day for me was when a lady who said that she had toured the 2007 house walked in to the bedroom and just stopped dead in her tracks. The only thing out of her mouth was "This house must have been designed by girls..!." She went on to explain that when she walked through the 2009 house, she was very surprised by all the room and storage it had compared to the 2007 house. She was very impressed with the 2009 house, which seemed to be the consensus for the whole day.
When 5 o'clock rolled around we closed the doors to the public and opened them up to UMR/ Missouri S&T alum. Alumni from the D.C. area came to tour the house and take us to a very tasty reception. We entertained about twenty-five alum and their family; Chancellor Carney even came to visit. Some Solar House alum members even came to pester us for the weekend."
Some of the crew that slogged through the '05 and '07 houses include (left to right) Chris Wright, Nick Bristow, Chris Krueger (can't remember that one), and Joe Schaefer.
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