Student scene Team Massachusetts’ solar home finished fourth in the Affordability category, second in Energy Balance and fourth in Market Appeal in the U.S. Department of Energy’s biennial Solar Decathlon.
(Credit: Stefano Paltera/U.S. Department of Energy)
STUDENTS HELP SHARPEN SKATERS‘ SKILLS
Students’ Solar Home Places Ninth in National Contest Team Massachusetts—made up of energy engineering students from UMass Lowell and architecture students from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design—won ninth place in the U.S. Department of Energy’s biennial Solar Decathlon competition held in late September in Washington, D.C. The team beat 10 other collegiate teams from the United States, Canada, Belgium and China. “This is the best showing ever by any Massachusetts team, public or private, in the history of the Solar Decathlon,” says Engineering Dean John Ting. “I think we had one of the most livable, energy-efficient, thoughtfully designed and executed homes. As proof, I believe we were the first home to be sold to a private owner, with the proceeds going to help defray the institutional costs of this project.” A number of donors, sponsors and volunteers contributed materials and services to the project, including Epoch Homes, which fabricated the house at the company’s factory in Pembroke, N.H., and Saint-Gobain North America, a global company with more than 190,000 employees in 64 countries, which donated about 30 different products used in the construction of the team’s home. Other donors included Nordic Engineered Wood, Solectria Renewables, Sundrum Solar, Boott Hydropower and Enel Green Power North America. The team’s entry—designed to house a family of three and to be completely powered by the sun—finished fourth in the Affordability category, second in Energy Balance and fourth in Market Appeal (three of the 10 individual contests that formed the overall “decathlon”). Overall, the University of Maryland won first place, followed by Purdue University and Victoria University in New Zealand. “It was a dream project for us,” says Apurav Jain, who is pursuing a master’s degree in solar engineering and plans to set up his own solar energy company in India after graduation. “We received a lot of practical experience and knowledge on how to go about installing photovoltaic panels and designing our system to comply with the national electrical code, among other things. It helped us better understand the concepts we learned in the classroom.” Other members of the 2011 UMass Lowell team included Christopher Bradley, John Connor, Milo DiPaola, Erik Jordan, Srilakshmi Kurmana, Tim Lee, Abdelwahed Nabat, Kemmeng Peng, Raam Perumal, Matthew Polese, Julianne Rhoads,Walter Thomas and Anant Wadalkar. Their faculty adviser was Prof. Robert Parkin of mechanical engineering.
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By assessing the strength and power of 40 figure skaters at the Reggie Lewis Track Athletic Center in Boston, physical therapy and exercise physiology students applied classroom learning to the real world. “It allowed them to use the skills they learned in the classroom in a real work setting,” says Assoc. Prof. Cynthia Ferrara of exercise physiology, who serves on the Sports Medicine and Sports Science Committee for U.S. Figure Skating. Second-year doctor of physical therapy students
Celine DeMaggio, Connor Ryan and Heather Jones and senior exercise physiology students Molly Nowill and Greg Titus, along with Ferrara, tested each of the skater’s abilities using the standards set by U.S. Skating. “Screening skaters helped me put to use some of the tests that we performed in our exercise physiology labs,” says Nowill. “It was a positive experience that really helped me apply my knowledge of exercise physiology in a setting outside of classes.”
Standing, from left, second-year doctor of physical therapy students Celine DeMaggio, Connor Ryan, Heather Jones and senior exercise physiology students Molly Nowill and Greg Titus.
STUDENTS DEVELOP SMARTPHONE APPS Imagine a smartphone app that helps drivers find parking spots on the UMass Lowell campus. Or one that lets you look up the location of the University’s shuttle bus in real time. These are just some of the cool, user-friendly programs developed recently by students in a computer science graduate course taught by Assoc. Prof. Benyuan Liu. The “UML Parking Finder” was created by Peng Xia and Shan Lu while the “UML Shuttle Tracker” was developed by Jason Chan, I-Hsuan Lin and Xiawei Liu. The students worked with the dozen smartphones that Microsoft had awarded to Prof. Liu for his teaching and research. The award was made possible through the company’s international educational partnership program.