It's been 5 days since the 2013 Solar Decathlon began. I have never felt more tired in my life. But at the same time, I have never felt more proud and rewarded.
We ended the first day of the competition in 4th place. The next day we found ourselves in 3rd, with the Czech Republic team in solid first place, followed immediately by Stanford. However, it wasn't long before we found ourselves leap-frogging Stanford to take 2nd place by the end of Friday. Saturday was an even better feeling, as by the end of the day we climbed up to 1st place overall! That celebration was short-lived, however, as we woke up Sunday morning with ourselves in 2nd place once again, this time replaced by Team Capitol DC in 1st. Ever since, it's been a tight race, without any of the top 3 teams (DC, SCU, and UNLV) wavering from their places.
Our team has so far performed exceptionally. We've achieved 1st place overall in the Home Entertainment category, and we continue to dominate the Comfort Zone category, thanks to the Messana Radiant system and the ingenuity of our Italian amici. With the next few days taken up mostly by the very intimidating jury walkthroughs, which amount to a majority of the points possible in the competition, the entire team is going to be on our toes.
In the meantime, I've taken the opportunity to get to know some of the other teams and tour their houses. Even though we are competing against each other, I enjoy admiring the work and dedication of so many students from around the world. Not to mention that there's some pretty awesome and diverse technology in each of the houses. I guess it's my way of getting to know the competition, and see what we're up against.
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
No comments:
Post a Comment