Students from Ontario's Carleton University, Algonquin College
and Queen's University have joined forces to enter a prestigious
U.S. competition that will challenge their skills, creativity
and ingenuity while they build a solar-powered house of the
future. Called the Solar Decathlon, the decade-old competition,
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, attracts dozens of
applicants worldwide every two years. Twenty are chosen to
compete over 10 days in 10 categories from energy balance and
architecture to market appeal and home entertainment. The
winning team will be the one judged to best blend affordability,
consumer appeal and design excellence with optimal energy
production and maximum efficiency. "It's pretty exciting," says
Chris Baldwin, Carleton's student project manager. "It builds
the image of the schools and the programs involved and it gives
us a lot of experience as well." The local group, called Team
Ontario, has spent upwards of three years preparing its
proposal, but now the real work begin