Team Alberta

Team Alberta recognized at Throne's Speech

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The Alberta Solar team was invited to the Thrones Speech on Thursday and was recognized by the Lieutenant Governor for the team's accomplishments at the 2009 Solar Decathlon.
Click here to view the speech : Solar Decathlon, SFT, Feb 4, 2010.pdf

Solar Hero - Episode 13

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Dinner Party Number Two

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

On Monday evening, the ENMAX SolAbode hosted a dinner party for three of our neighboring teams. Culinary students from SAIT prepared the dinner; it was fantastic! We enjoyed a three course meal, including fruit wrapped in prosciutto, lamp, chicken, mashed potatoes, and sticky toffee pudding…. YUM!

All of our guests seemed to have a great time, for the conversation was continuous, to the point we had to be notified we were running out of time, and needed to finish eating. In addition, the atmosphere/ambiance was beautiful. The table had vases with gerber daisies, place mats, cloth napkins, plates made by Jen Somerville, and was surrounded by beautiful pendant lighting.

View from the Cab

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

We are currently four days into the competition and Team Alberta and the ENMAX SolAbode are doing well - we’ve been floating around the middle of the standings.There are still many points yet to be earned and we are confident that we will soon be among the leaders. It’s an amazing experience to be on the National Mall for the US Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, especially considering the long road traveled to get here. The final push came when we assembled the home last week. During this rather hectic period this team was at it’s best,putting in long hours and getting the job done. I spent much of this time behind the wheel of our 10 ton off-road forklift moving large loads around our site and lifting materials needed for the SolAbode. This included installing some of the stone parapets for the home (they had to come off for shipping due to height limits). It was exciting to get to have this role, here are some views from the cab.

RAIN! As we were movingmaterials, a rain storm moved in before our roof was up!

The Capital Building through the slings holding the North Parapet

Lowering one of the South Parapets. Extra care was needed to not break the Keyway Glass during the procedure.

Open to the Public

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

So yesterday was the first official weekend that people were welcome to tour the homes and although the weather wasn't perfect we have hundreds of people tour the house from 10am - 5pm. We were always told to expect this many people on the National Mall however it was quite surreal yesterday to see so many people interested in the home.A couple of really quick things to note:

1) The standings of the competition are updated every 15 minutes to reflect how the team is doing. We are currently sitting in 10th place however the big announcements on Architecture and Market Viability are on Monday. To stay up to date on the scoring CLICK HERE

2) Another important part of this competition is the people's choice award. You can watch a virtual tour of the home and text a number in to vote for Team Alberta. CLICK HERE for more information

Here are some pictures from the past couple of days:

Picture of the crowd during the peak hours of tours.

To engage people in the line-up we invited Sg. Patrick Webb to join the team to showcase our heritage and culture in Alberta and Canada

Another interesting part of this competition was the home entertainment competition where we had our culinary arts students prepare a special dish in the team's kitchen.

The meal that was served has probably the best that we had all eaten in the past couple of months.

Competition Begins

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The past week has been incredibly busy, invigorating, exhausting, frustrating, challenging and rewarding all together. I woke up at 4am, and was on site at around 5am for 8 days in a row, to help construct the house. We divided up into 3 shifts, all approximately 10 hours long, and had people working every second of the day, for 8 days. Most people stayed for at least 12 hours every day, and some people stayed up to 24 hours in one stretch on site.

The completed ENMAX SolAbode

Today the competition started. We weren’t able to compete for the first few hours because of delays with inspections, but eventually started competing at noon. On our first day we had an opening ceremony, VIP tours, and a team get-together in the house in the evening.

As I was anxiously awaiting my first round of visitors for the bedroom tour this afternoon, I had a rush of excitement, and almost cried for joy. I was so proud, and excited to be at the Solar Decathlon. Our house is absolutely stunning!!! So many people touring the ENMAX Solabode today said it was their favorite, and they could picture themselves living there. These comments speak volumes and I am hoping give a reliable prediction to our success in the competition.

In particular, our bathroom is tranquil, unique and STUNNING!

The finished bathroom area

October 4th - Photo Update

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I firstly want to say how surreal it is to be standing on the National Mall with our team having worked on this project for the past two years. Although I have been working the graveyard shift from 11pm - 7am in the morning its still such an amazing experience and feeling to be in the moment here in Washington. As we have witnessed over the past couple of days people have really enjoyed the design of our home and we even yesterday had an offer from an individual to by our home. For our entire team its all worth it when we hear people commenting already that its by far there favorite home on the Mall and cannot wait until public tours start in a couple of days. That being said I have been truly amazed with some of our competitors and the level of innovation in design and technology that I will be very interested to see how the competition pans out.

So here is a quick photo update from October 4th:

David and Ryan looking up at the working going on the roof with the PV installation

A picture of the house from back walkway of the National Mall

Ryan on the room getting ready to lay the PV of the bedroom module

The front of the house which is substantially completed

Days 1 -3 for assembly

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Assembly actually started at 11:00 pm on Day 0, September 30th, when all the teams were allowed to get onto our lots and start surveying and staging items for when our trucks arrived at midnight on Day 1, October 1st. You could cut the tension with a knife at the mall that night. Teams were staged along the sidewalks waiting eagerly, while organizers were riding around on bikes making sure no one broke the rules and got a head start. It was really exciting to be there for that kick off. My shift starts at 5am every morngin though, so I had to get out of there pretty quick. On the way back to the hotel though, we saw the most insane traffic jam of about 15 oversize loads on tractor trailers full of house pieces for all the teams.

Traffic jam to get on the National Mall.

The next morning we came in and were happy to see that the night crew had set up all the rails for our foundation. Our house sits on a special foundation system that consists of 5" x 5" square steel tubes set on footings where all the main loads come from our walls. This system lets us roll the modules of our house into place rapidly and without a crane so we can connect the house together in a day and a half.

Manpower wins the day to push our 30,000 lb Module 3.

Our whole shift that day consisted of unloading trucks and getting the house modules set and ready to connect. By the time we left 3 of the house modules were unloaded and ready to be set into place and the 4th truck was coming in to be unloaded.

3 Modules ready to connect.

I guess they ran into a few issues over the next night though, because when we arrived in the morning, the last truk was still waiting to be unloaded and the modules weren't connected yet It was all ok in the end though, because the time when our shifts change we have an hour or more of overlap when we have lots of people on site all at once. We rallied hard and were able to unload our last truck and send it on its way and get some modules together before the sun even rose. later that day we were able to get our foundation inspection signed off and we started to go up a level and set up our roof.

Mike Gestwick and Me talking to Chief Solar Decathlon Inspector Tom Meyers.

Marc Haberli and Ben Shideler working on the upper walls.

Of course it started to rain though and we had to scramble to get a tarp on the roof. At that point our shift was long over though and we hit the road to get some much needed r & r before getting out there and doing it again today. The reports we heard form last night were pretty bad though. the team was caught in an all out downpour at times and they had to do everything they could to keep the water from coming into the house like a waterfall.

The tarps have come out.

I'll leave it to some of our other team members to tell more of the story. Until next time, this is Matt Beck signing out.

Solar Hero - Episode 9

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Solar Hero - Episode 9

Click Here for more Solar Hero Episodes

In Washington and Ready for The Challenge

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Today myself and most of the team flew to Washington, via Texas. As we waited for our boarding call at six in the morning, everyone seemed to be wondering where the house was, if it was going to arrive safely, and if there had been any problems at the border. Given everyone's concern, it's incredibly apparent that the group of people we've brought to Washington are going to do a great job putting the house together and showcasing it for the competition.

Team waiting in the airport on route to Washington

Gerry's shot from Airport

Kim checks the map to make sure the team gets to the hotel

Putting the house back together is going to be an enormous and exhausting task. Five days of physical labor for 11 hours a day is not my normal routine, but there are individuals on the team who seem very physically prepared for the challenge, because of the super-human amount of hours they put into constructing the house. I'm really looking forward to the challenge, of being a runner/inter. I am focused on the exciting end result when I get to put the finishing decorative touches on the house with Helen.

Wish us luck!!