Gov’t Built Solar House Falls Apart

[computerworks]

"redstate.com"? Well, that kinda negates any validity.

What's troubling is ..more and more of these nihilist bloggers are just down on America and the American will to succeed...it's just anti-American propaganda.

Roscoe, when did you become so anti-American?

Originally Posted by Roscoe

No one had any reason to be precise. No one had any pressure to succeed.

I find that hard to swallow and insulting to the American people and the talent in Michigan.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by computerworks

"redstate.com"? Well, that kinda negates any validity.

What's troubling is ..more and more of these nihilist bloggers are just down on America and the American will to succeed...it's just anti-American propaganda.

Roscoe, when did you become so anti-American?

I find that hard to swallow and insulting to the American people and the talent in Michigan.

CW,
Don't sweat it - I have it on good authority that we are not able to design and build a bunch of cars with an average of 35.5mpg either.
Obama's wants 35.5mpg by 2016

I'm glad the folks on CC were able to set me straight before I wasted all kinds of time trying to solve some engineering problems. I'm told praying works...

Steve

[392cobra]

Originally Posted by computerworks

...it's just anti-American propaganda.

Roscoe, when did you become so anti-American?



I find that hard to swallow and insulting to the American people and the talent in Michigan.

How is it anti-American to point out the fact 40 Students and some Union Workers failed and wasted a lot of taxpayers money ?

Are the Union Workers & Students part of the Short Bus crowd where everyone is Special and deserves a trophy no matter how badly they fail ?
That mentality seems unAmerican to me and almost certain to foster more failure.

[1ntCobra]

Originally Posted by 392cobra

How is it anti-American to point out the fact 40 Students and some Union Workers failed and wasted a lot of taxpayers money ?

Are the Union Workers & Students part of the Short Bus crowd where everyone is Special and deserves a trophy no matter how badly they fail ?
That mentality seems unAmerican to me and almost certain to foster more failure.

I think you are being a bit over the top in your criticism of a student project. A couple of decades ago when I went to college, one of the engineering departments was involved student project that built solar powered cars for a national competition among colleges. It might have been an annual thing or every few years. In any case, would I consider a prototype vehicle, something that I would expect someone to sell or use after the student project is over? I think they might store the thing for a while, perhaps disassemble it to get some parts out of it and then trash the rest of it. It is a student project, not a real world vehicle that you would expect to take on a real highway, expect to carry passengers/cargo and expect to have a service life of a couple hundred thousand miles.

Keep in mind that the student project solar house was one of many built by a number of colleges in a competition. I expect that most of them ended up disassembled, recycled and trashed. I doubt anyone expected anyone to live in or use a student project, yet this one ends up apparently neglected in a park and nobody is around to notice pipes breaking. Nobody bothered to insure the thing. I'm surprised it was not vandalized and covered with graffiti too.

My undergraduate senior project in college was some software for a series of software engineering courses. I don't even remember what it did, but I do remember who was on my team. The software certainly was not commercialized or sold. It was just erased off the computer when our accounts expired.

Let me guess. Your senior project in college was practical, commercialized and you, your fellow students, your school and your sponsors made billions of dollars off of it. And now you have plenty of free time on your hands to gloat of your success and point out the failures of all the other millions of senior college projects that just got us a grade.

[392cobra]

Originally Posted by 1ntCobra

I think you are being a bit over the top in your criticism of a student project.

In my non-PC world...An F is a F. The project failed.

No Short Bus Trophies.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by 392cobra

In my non-PC world...An F is a F. The project failed.

No Short Bus Trophies.

Fred,
Maybe you should take a look at a few less biased writeups as the guy who wrote this article had no idea what he was talking about.

According to Lawrence Tech U someobody was making some modifications and switched off a circuit breaker and forgot to turn it back on. It ended up causing about $16K wort of damage.

The house was initially paid for by private individuals and corporate sponsors - the $900K included transportation to Washington DC. The real cost of the house was about $550K. The house was given by the Troy Chamber of Commerce to the City of Troy, and the city is now responsible for the maintenance costs.

The house was in a competition against 20 other solar powered houses from Cornell, MIT and others - and took second place. Looks like it served its purpose very well - good thing you are not giving out the grades for the project.

I personaly would congratulate them - scoring a second aginst some heavy hitters like MIT was probably not an easy thing. But you go ahead and give them an 'F' 'cause engineering talent like yours and Roscoes is just real hard to come by.

I'd like to see an apology from you and Roscoe to them before this thread gets closed - those LTU folks deserve a LOT better than what they got from the two of you.

Mods, my apologies if this is a bit too personal but I am really sick of these uninformed hit pieces posing as news - and I am especially not fond of attacks on other engineer types not present to defend themselves by people who would not have a bloody idea where to begin to achieve even half of what those students did.

Sorry for the rant - this is the second time I've ever reacted emotionally on this forum.

Steve

[392cobra]

Originally Posted by VRM

Fred,
According to Lawrence Tech U someobody was making some modifications and switched off a circuit breaker and forgot to turn it back on. It ended up causing about $16K wort of damage.


The house was in a competition against 20 other solar powered houses from Cornell, MIT and others - and took second place. Looks like it served its purpose very well - good thing you are not giving out the grades for the project.

I personaly would congratulate them - scoring a second aginst some heavy hitters like MIT was probably not an easy thing. But you go ahead and give them an 'F' 'cause engineering talent like yours and Roscoes is just real hard to come by.

I'd like to see an apology from you and Roscoe to them before this thread gets closed - those LTU folks deserve a LOT better than what they got from the two of you.


Sorry for the rant - this is the second time I've ever reacted emotionally on this forum.

Steve

The house was a part of the Solar Decathlon's "solar village" exhibition in Washington, D.C. It competed against a field of 20 universities – including MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Cornell – in last year's decathlon, a prestigious international competition where universities contend to build the most attractive and energy-efficient, solar-powered home.

Lawrence Tech was the smallest college in the contest and the only one from Michigan. Its house was one of the runners-up in the BP People’s Choice Award competition, thanks to an architectural design many found attractive and livable.

They didn't get "Second",they got a Short Bus Trophy for showing up.

Nothing for all their "Green".
They couldn't even figure to turn the heat back on because it's going it cold and freeze the pipes.

"Oh,I forget" Must have been the window licker at the back of the bus.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by 392cobra

The house was a part of the Solar Decathlon's "solar village" exhibition in Washington, D.C. It competed against a field of 20 universities – including MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Cornell – in last year's decathlon, a prestigious international competition where universities contend to build the most attractive and energy-efficient, solar-powered home.

Lawrence Tech was the smallest college in the contest and the only one from Michigan. Its house was one of the runners-up in the BP People’s Choice Award competition, thanks to an architectural design many found attractive and livable.

They didn't get "Second",they got a Short Bus Trophy for showing up.

Nothing for all their "Green".
They couldn't even figure to turn the heat back on because it's going it cold and freeze the pipes.

"Oh,I forget" Must have been the window licker at the back of the bus.

Well, it's a good thing that Edison managed to invent the light bulb on his first try, or he would be on that short bus too.