Same story, different day...........
We've alluded to the house getting hit by a tree en route to DC. The roof damage was only cosmetic, but it happened to be on a prominent part of the home. The solution was to replace roof panels, try to bend the tangled mess back in place, or just live with it and explain it to the judges,
Well, the Show-Me Solars had originally planned to install guttering, and looking back at the plans they realized that a gutter would hide the damage nicely, so Corey Brennan and Amber Gomaz spent a good part part of last night bending coil stock into a custom-made, 52' long gutter.
With the help of Dr. Seth Orsborn, Corey, Amber, David George and Sara Shafer, the new gutter went up easily. As you can probably tell from the photo at left, if you absolutely have to bring a Ph.D. to this event, it's so much better if you bring a tall one.
Another sign that the competition is growing nearer is water delivery. There are no water supply lines on the National Mall, so each house has to provide its own water 
supply and water pressurization system. Organizers send around large water trucks to provide 300+ gallons of water to each house, so teams has to have their own tanks and pumps. Each house must provide a waste tank to recapture "grey water". All the systems remain clean, so in reality the "waste" water from showers is still pretty clean. We don't flush toilets for real on the Mall, and don't use detergents to reduce any risks of spills.
The trucks go house to house like milkmen of yore, and teams carry the hoses from the next door neighbor's to yours to avoid spills or damage.
*Back to the question that is on everybody's mind............how many engineers DOES it take to fill a water tank? 
We're not sure how many it really takes, but our federally-funded research proves without a doubt that filling a water tank will keep three engineers completely fascinated for hours.
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