THE RETURN OF TEAM TIDEWATER
The partnership between Old Dominion University and Hampton University on last year's Department of Energy Solar Decathlon was so successful that the two schools have teamed up again.
On Jan. 26, Team Tidewater, composed of engineering students from ODU and architecture students from HU, was announced as a finalist for the 2013 Solar Decathlon, to be held in Orange County Great Park in Irvine, Calif.
Twenty colleges and universities from the United States, Canada and Europe will compete in the event, where teams attempt to design and build the best net zero energy home, to be judged in categories such as energy efficiency and marketability.
Team Tidewater finished in 14th place in the 2011 Solar Decathlon finals in Washington, D.C. The team's experimental home, known as Unit 6 Unplugged, will soon be relocated to a permanent site at 47th Street and Killam Avenue on the ODU campus. It will serve as the permanent home of ODU's Sustainable Development Institute, part of the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology, and act as a testing lab and showroom for alternative energy technologies.
Canopy House, the name chosen for Team Tidewater's entry in Solar Decathlon 2013, will be designed as an energy-efficient home that is simple to control, allowing it to be tailored to the needs of the disabled. The two lead advisers for the project, Mujde Erten-Unal, associate professor of civil engineering at ODU, and David Peronnet, professor of architecture at Hampton, were also advisers for Team Tidewater's entry in last year's competition. Many of the students who comprised the initial Team Tidewater have indicated a willingness to sign on for another Solar Decathlon campaign.
Three other ODU faculty members have pledged to serve as advisers - Shirshak Dhali, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Gene Hou, professor of mechanical engineering; and Nathan Luetke, senior lecturer of engineering technology.
Among the other schools selected for the 2013 Solar Decathlon are a few repeat entries, such as Middlebury College from Vermont and the University of Calgary, along with new teams from Stanford University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the Vienna University of Technology from Austria.
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