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Connie and I will be at Solar Decathlon this coming Saturday, probably around opening time of 11 am. We could park the PiP at one of the houses and "charge" using the OEM brick if they want (could be a fake charging if they don't have a spare outlet: for show only) while we tour the other houses. Would need assurance that cable and brick would be secured so no one would walk off with it during our absence. If getting there sooner to be in place prior to public opening is required to pull this off, we can do that.
 
OK, I will maintain a list for the Solar Decathlon Event here:
If we can "participate" in some way,
I will note that here as well.

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Links:
http://the-xpo.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Thu 3 Oct
Jeremy in morning?

Fri 4 Oct
Gary and Rob LEAF

Sat 5 Oct
Kat PiP about 11 AM
Gary? LEAF

Sun 6 Oct
10:30 Gathering before 11 opening.
Meet at the new Solar Decathlon entrance on Trabuco,
($5 per car) no special parking arranged, sorry.
Phil LEAF
Gary LEAF
Dori LEAF
Tom LEAF
JasonA LEAF

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Thu 10 Oct

Fri 11 Oct

Sat 12 Oct

Sun 13 Oct

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Cheers, Gary
 
It looks like a new entrance to the Great Park will be used to
handle the traffic and parking ($5 fee) for the Solar Decathlon.
They describe an entrance using Jeffery north from I5 to
Trabuco, going right (southish) to the new entrance.

Perhaps exhibitors and volunteers will enter as I described
previously, from Sand Canyon Road, just barely east of
the I5 freeway.

I will check it out, and attempt to get parking passes
for our "volunteers" or "exibitors".
(none available for us)
 
With 20 entries ("houses") to tour, leave plenty of time.
Apparently, many special events are scheduled.

A map of the housing entries:
http://www.solardecathlon.gov/village_map.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
20 houses and no solar power hookups :roll:

When they emailed me back with the response I was disappointed.. panels on every roof but no juice??

Very unGreen...
 
I am guessing that the main visitor parking will be a shuttle ride
from the Solar houses, and that the main exhibits will be in
the nearby large airplane-hanger building.

No word yet from the organizers on getting special parking,
or parking inside near the Solar houses, or the exhibition hall.
 
Bringing the Leaf.. always the Leaf!! :D

If we could be allowed to park inside and around the main area or is Plug-in-American wanting volunteers to come in?

That would be cool!!
 
JasonA said:
Bringing the Leaf.. always the Leaf!! :D

If we could be allowed to park inside and around the main area or is Plug-in-American wanting volunteers to come in?

That would be cool!!

Plug In America has booth #112 inside the SunShot Pavilion. Some info has been posted to a Solar Decathlon thread here and another update today here.

We can use more volunteers on any day of the event, but these are our most critical timeslots right now:

Oct 10th
3p-7p

Oct 11th
11a-3p
3p-7p

Oct 12th
11a-3p
3p-7p

Oct 13th
11a-3p

If any volunteer wants to PM me their email address, I can include it in our next volunteer update email. I'll be sending another one out this afternoon to report on the booth setup.

Thanks.
 
No word yet from the Solar Decathlon about special
parking for our LEAFs.

The event opens at 11 AM this (Thursday) morning, 3 Oct.

If you apply on-line to become a Volunteer, I suspect that
you get to park in a free volunteer parking area, reached
from the entrance under I5, and get a t-shirt. :D

However, there are hoops to jump through, forms
(medical and liability releases), and at least an online
training video, an hour long. Work shifts are generally
5 hours, 10:00 to 3:00 or 2:30 to 7:30 PM, I believe.

There are many specific tasks, and some require lifting
and being on your feet.

For all, sunblock is strongly recommended, since there
is very little shade and it might be "cooking".
 
Look up
Solar Decathlon Great Park
and there is a lot of info, especially under Volunteers.
A 44 page pdf provides color pictures of all the
Solar home enrties.

The solar homes will not want to provide charging because
10% of the 1000 contest points are awarded by generating
more energy than they use.

There are special event bus routes, for $1 or $2 per person.
One is from the Metro rail station, bus free to metro riders.
Another route starts at UC Irvine, with another pickup
at the Irvine Spectrum, where there might be covered parking.

The main event parking, $5 per vehicle, is efficient if
there are passengers, even if you are attending more
than twice, but the parking is in the full sun.

It is not worth becoming a Volunteer just to get free parking.
However, being a Volunteer for several shifts at this rare
event is a great way to give to the world. Volunteers
will be very busy for their 5-hour shift, so plan for
other, non-shift visiting hours.

There are lots of things to see, and a quick 2 hour visit
would appear to give one barely an overview.
 
I did get out there yesterday and saw all the houses. I have one very important piece of advice:

Wear good shoes. You will be doing A LOT of walking.

You will notice that the houses are built for the area of the school that designed them. Also, Europeans really like wood houses. Not sure I'd want such a design in southern California. My favorite was the Santa Clara house (which was tuned for our climate), or the Arizona state or U of Los Vegas house (after seeing ten houses and aching feet they all run together). A few of the desert houses use radiant ceiling cooling, basically like radiant floor heating but... above you with cold instead of hot water. :)

Also got to meet some big-wigs of Bosch. Enlightened them on the Rema J1772 cable overheating issue that they were not aware of.
 
See the team scoring
http://www.solardecathlon.gov/scores.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Either nobody did well in Appliances, or these are just partial scores?
 
LA Times has nice summary of 8 ? (I only see 6) of the houses.

http://graphics.latimes.com/cheatsheet-lh-solar-decathlon/

The track system for SCI-Arc/Caltech sounds interesting.

The North Carolina team uses concrete made with 90% reduction in its carbon footprint. Curing of concrete generates 7% of world's carbon footprint. They use liquid cooling in the concrete walls - something I have contemplated doing for my house. Should help with TOU billing as well.

Middlebury house has very thick walls.

Main Solar Decathlon page has complete list.
http://www.solardecathlon.gov/teams.html

The Czech house has a charging station for an electric bicycle.

It sounds like I may not have enough energy to visit all the houses. Jeremy liked Santa Clara. Any more votes for top 6-8 houses ?
 
garygid said:
I did not get to the Solar Decathlon today, but I intend to
go Tomorrow (Friday).

See some of you Saturday at the HTB in Santa Ana on 17th street.

Planning to join you Saturday, Gary, if I can shake the allergic sneezing brought on by these infernal winds.
 
The weather forecast for LA is 92 degrees for Saturday and Sunday,
with temperatures dropping substantially to about 68 on Wednesday.

So, I might just meet on Sunday, assuming that we are still going
to meet on such a hot day, and plan to go see everything next week.

Anyone else feel that bailing out on Sunday might be wise?

However, I intend to be at HTB by 8 AM tomorrow.
We will work on some Android app issues, and
I am bringing tape for Dori's gland. :D
 
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