photo: copyright www.o2t.de
The first teams meeting of the Solar Decathlon 2009 including all organizers. As we just arrived in Washington, DC including jet lag we were nearly ready to handle all that given information. Hints for an optimized performance in public were followed by the introduction of all organizers were followed by the introduction of all teams followed by …
Team Germany was presented as “the defending champion” excitedly. Missy introduced Team Germany by three sentences and we got only little applause. Sometimes it is hard to stand exactly at the same point like all other teams but being highlighted for something our team was not to be able to help for …
Washington Monument at night
Capitol in Washington at night
Finally we arrived in Washington, DC. It was a long day with a long flight. We were all tired but we visited the National Mall to get the right “Solar Decathlon Spirit”. Now we are really in the game …
Tomorrow most members of Team Germany will travel to Washington, DC; so it’s time to get all things “on board”. Our team uniforms were just delivered in time. And gifts for special guests are send by post towards the U.S.
And regarding the beauty … have a look at the shirts 
Hello world … we are comming:
Things were happening fast these days. We structured our internet presence and preparing for the communications contest by updating our homepage. We get ready for all other contests and try to NOT FORGET anything we might need in the U.S. And this is not a tiny package, as we have to bring our complete 230V system with us for example.
And to communicate with all of you, we installed a twitter account for fast information about Team Germanys progress. We would like to invite you to … follow us!
Here you see Christian, team member of our architectural team, in his natural surrounding: at his work desk.
As our building was send in the U.S. three weeks ago, we kept the main parts of the building automation to program them. He is actually working on the building automation of our louver and jalousie shading and tries find out an optimized schedule of control by low work time for our electrical engineers.
He has mainly planned and built the shading system and has already solved many problems seeming unsolvable in the planning process. And when you come to the surPLUShome on the National Mall in Washington D.C. in October, you will see that he sometimes used unbuildable solutions for this. If there is something moving … think of him.
Annika and Hannes were so kind to invite all Solar Decathletes of Team Germany to degustate the main course of our second dinner menu with them. Imbedded in one of the loveliest places in the world we tried to be on our best behavior.
By the way: the surPLUShome has crossed the customs and is standing on American ground for the first time. We all keep our fingers crossed to get it back safe and undamaged.
Today the ship transporting the surPLUShome left Bremerhaven towards Norfolk, U.S.. This is one of the strangest situations for our team in the whole Solar Decathlon competition: If something will happen to the ship, we are powerless. But we we are not insensible. There is so much to do …
