Missouri S&T Solar House Team

Can students live in the Solar Village?

Yes any student can live in the Solar Village. Because it is on campus, is also counts as Campus Approved Housing for Freshman and Sophmore students who are required to live on campus. The leases typically run June 1-May 31.

The Solar Village is first open to members of the solar house team. If no one from the Solar House team wants to live there, it is then open to members of the members of the Student Deisgn and Experiential Learning Center (SDELC, http://design.mst.edu/). After that the house is available to the entire campus. The selection process has never left the SDELC.

For the 2008-2009 year, we will have three houses available for rent. If you would like more information, contact the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center in the 112 Engineering Research Lab (behind Computer Science).

Posted by UMR Solar House at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over the last few weeks the Missouri S&T solar house team has been making arrangements with students and faculty in the Architectural Studies program at Mizzou to work together on the 2009 Solar Decathlon. Last Saturday 16 students and 2 advisers joined us here in Rolla to discuss the partnership.

Being one of only two schools without an Architecture program, we need some help. After proposing the idea to some of the faculty, we found out they loved it. They are ready to hop on board with all-out effort. The first thing we needed to work out would be team structure. We have decided that Mizzou students will be primarily responsible for the architectural and interior design features of the house. S&T students will be primarily responsible for the systems in the house and "making it work." It will be great to have Architects fighting for the looks of the house and the engineers fighting for the systems and functionality of the house.

We had to come up with a new name that could incorporate the name of both schools into project. We have tentatively decided to call it the Show-Me Solar Project. Look out decathlon, the team from Missouri is back and better

Posted by UMR Solar House at 07:39 PM | Permalink

The Missouri S&T Solar House received word today that we have been admitted to the 2009 competition. We have made changes to the internal working of our team and should be receiving more support from the University.

If you are interested in joining or supporting the team, send an e-mail to sunhome@mst.edu contact sunhome@mst.edu for more information.

Posted by UMR Solar House at 07:28 PM | Permalink

I am trying to put together a master folder of all the pictures taken of our house before, during and after competition. If you have ANY pictures, please drop me an e-mail sunhome@mst.edu.

Thanks!

-Joe

Posted by UMR Solar House at 12:05 AM | Permalink

For anyone out there who doesn't know, the university is changing from UMR to the Missouri University of Science and Technology or Missouri S&T for short.

To distinguish UMR from the other University of Missouri campuses; to reflect the university’s national mission; to broaden market share for the best students nationally, and to enhance the university’s reputation.

Effective immediately please know that all of our websites and e-mail address have changed from umr.edu to mst.edu. For the time being umr.edu will work, but is soon to be disabled.

sunhome@mst.edu
Main Website: http://solarhouse.mst.edu
Blog: http://sunhome.mst.edu

Posted by UMR Solar House at 11:47 PM | Permalink

The team is back and now well rested after the 2007 Solar Decathlon. We have been working hard to get the 2007 house established on the foundation. To do this, we are moving all the mechanical systems to the basement. This will give the house a more normal feel when someone moves in next semester. At the same time we have been meeting over the last couple weeks to discuss design ideas and themes. We have a number of strengths that we are going to try to keep up the momentum on, but we also have a few weaknesses that we are working on plans for improvement. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Department of Energy's Request for Proposals (RFP) is Due on December 7th. We have been hard at work getting this prepared.

The rumors floating around there were about 60 proposals sent in for the 2007 competition, of which 20 were accepted. For this competition it is expected they will receive more than 100 proposals.

We are very excited about the next competition. We more support internally from than school than ever before. We have more student interest. We have more corporate interest. All around, this is a very exciting and nerve wrecking time for us. So be sure to keep your fingers crossed to find out if we will be in the next competition to take place on the national mall in 2009.

Posted by UMR Solar House at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since we haven't posted many pictures, here are a few that I took in Washington D.C.

This is an interior shot from the hall, looking toward the front door during construction on the National Mall. Each one of those windows on the curved "header" comes apart separately to ship the house.

Continue reading "A Few Pictures" »

Posted by UMR Solar House at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in Chicago last weekend on a random bus and I happened to look up at the advertisements on the top walls. There was a poster for a Green Home Expo and it had a small partial picture of the 2005 UMR Solar House on it. Check out the picture below. It is the picture just to the left of the large pole. There isn't much there, but it's definately recognizable.

Of course I got really excited and started telling everyone that I actually built the house that was in the picture. How cool is that?!

-Chris

Posted by UMR Solar House at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What is the Cost per square foot of the 2007 solar house?

The cost of a marketable prototype of the UMR Solar House is approx. $200,000.

The foot print of the house is 800 square feet. That comes out to be $250/square foot.

Posted by UMR Solar House at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The results came back. The UMR Solar House finished in eleventh place, quite a bit lower than we had hoped, but still an amazing feat. In the end the team worked hard, had fun and helped save the world. As they say everyone wins with this type of project.

We have started talking about what our 2009 house will look like. Stay tuned to find out more!

Continue reading "The results are in" »

Posted by UMR Solar House at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)