So at 6 p.m. on a Thursday in Washington, D.C., Laura Wilke hopped in Kansas State University's electric car and drove off in search of a gas station.
Going "off the grid" was never supposed to be like this. But assembling K-State's entry in the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon has required improvisation, collaboration and some contradictions.
Wilke, a Columbus, Neb., graduate student in architecture, has been tag-teaming with other students to erect the Kansas Project Solar House on the National Mall. She came back to Manhattan to catch up on course work after a week in Washington.
Her electric-car errand, to find fuel for a generator, was just one of many tasks that have sprung up since the first of the team's two semitrailers showed up at midnight Oct. 2. Unfortunately, it wasn't the truck with their safety equipment. "But the Cornell team next door lent us hard hats," Wilke said, so the K-Staters could get started.
The Wildcats returned the favor, helping the New Yorkers lay DuraDeck to protect the Mall's lawn from truck traffic. "So it formed a bond between us," Wilke said. "It's kind of cool to see all the colleges collaborating." Her gas mission couldn't have succeeded without a borrowed Texas A&M gas can; K-State had packed only a container for diesel.
"The electric cars are a really good selling point for the decathlon," Wilke said. Such errands as running to the hardware store for ground screws "gets us out into the community, and people ask a lot of questions."
K-State is one of 20 universities and colleges from the U.S. and abroad whose proposals were chosen to compete in the decathlon. Student teams design, build and operate homes that are powered entirely by the sun. Four "subjective" contests, such as the appeal of the design, and six "objective" contests make up the event, which runs through Saturday, Oct. 20. Winners will be announced Friday, Oct. 19.
The second K-State truck, holding the house itself, was delayed, making the Kansas Project Solar House the second-to-last entry to arrive, Wilke said. But she's confident the long days and nights of work will finish the house by the deadline of Thursday, Oct. 11. All houses have been required to be running on solar power alone since Oct. 8.
Sleep has been in short supply, with students catching catnaps whenever and wherever. "The mattress that we're putting in the house has already come in handy," Wilke said.
Others found less comfy accommodations, sleeping on stacks of cardboard or curling up in secluded corners of the various entries as floodlights illuminated the scene.
"I guess you could say it really integrates you into the project," Wilke said.
Photos and a daily blog about what is happening at the competition, which will open to the public Friday, Oct. 12, are available at the Solar Decathlon Web site, http://www.solardecathlon.org
The K-State team is made up of mostly architecture students, but students from all departments of the College of Architecture, Planning and Design and some from the College of Engineering have assisted with the project. Construction of the home began in the 2006-2007 school year; this semester's students didn't know they were D.C.-bound until the first day of class, Wilke said.
R. Todd Gabbard has supervised the project along with Larry Bowne; both are assistant professors of architecture. The team also has received help from Ruth Miller, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.
The competition's main sponsor is the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.