Solar team steels itself for victory

By Tom Sullivan

Santa Clara's solar decathlon team has high hopes for its upcoming competition as they follow in the footsteps of the surprisingly successful 2007 campaign.

"All the pressure is coming from within," said civil engineering major Andrew Smith. "We really think we can win this thing, so we're going all out."

They plan to compete in the Solar Decathlon competition in October, which is held every other year in Washington D.C. on the National Mall.

Roughly $1.2 million has been pledged to support the construction of the solar house, $500,000 more than it took to complete the 2007 project, which resulted in a third-place finish.

Smith said the success of their predecessors has helped them with fundraising.

"The economy is also affecting how those companies can help though," said Smith.

The team is collaborating with California College of the Arts, San Francisco. Students there will help with the architecture and design of the house. This should help the team improve on the 2007 team's house, which only landed in 18th place in the architecture category, worth 20 percent of the competition.

The 2007 team built upon a rough architectural design from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, who dropped out of the competition.

While having California College of the Arts' help will certainly benefit that aspect of the project, it will also make the process more complex.

The engineers at Santa Clara have decided to use steel, the total cost of which was about $40,000, because of the design the architects produced.

"Steel allows us, basically, to make the design that the architects came up with," Smith said. "They didn't put enough walls in the building to keep it up."

Tim Sennott, a veteran from the last team and a leader of this year's team, said there are some key differences between this year's team and competition.

"I'm one of just a couple people who did anything on the '07 house. None of the big contributors from the past team are on this team," he said. "It's a whole different set of people, fresh skills. It's a very different house."

Sennott, who is a photographer for The Santa Clara, said the competition will be less focused on architecture and more focused on electrical work.

"There are a number of differences in the contest itself which make it different in general," he said. "One of the themes of this year's decathlon is integration of solar technology into building structure, basically proving that solar energy can be beautiful and can be marketable and can be reliable."

Smith said the team consists of many students, with some faculty help. They're also receiving help from professionals.

"Rough estimate, there are probably about 50 students at Santa Clara that have some type of involvement," he said. "About ten students that are really, really committed to the project."

The team has a timeline in place for completion of the house.

"We are starting construction over spring break, and we're expecting to be completely done before the end of school," said Smith. "We'll probably have a roof over our head by three weeks into next quarter."

To make it easier to transport to the competition, the building is going to be constructed in three different modules, and they will all be the same width.

Radian flooring will be used so the heating and cooling will come through the floors and ceilings instead of vents, making the building more efficient.

Sennott said the team's objective is about more than the contest.

"As far as the team is concerned, we want to make a very functional house. Really, the competition is not about winning but trying to push these technologies forward," he said. "That would be my goal, and I think of a lot of the other people on the team."

The winner of the national contest in Washington, D.C. will have the opportunity to attend a similar contest in Europe.

Mary Georgevich contributed reporting to this article. Contact Tom Sullivan at (408) 554-4546 or tsullivan@scu.edu.