Focus 2012: Solar Energy

As a special opportunity for Clark School and University of Maryland students, the Clark School is holding a video competition in conjunction with the 2012 Engineering Sustainability Workshop, whose focus is on solar energy.

Just announced!

Our judges for this year's competition will be Professor Ray Adomaitis (chemical and biomolecular engineering), Assistant Professor Krista Wigginton (civil and environmental engineering) and FOX45 News Reporter (and UMD alum!) Joel D. Smith!

Guidelines for the Competition

Goal of the Competition

The Clark School of Engineering seeks to reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the energy consumption of its buildings and laboratories. The video competition seeks to engage students in this mission by encouraging them to develop solutions utilizing solar photovoltaic and/or thermal energy.

Eligibility

The video competition is open to individual current Clark School students at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and to teams of current Clark School and non-Clark School University of Maryland students, also at the graduate and undergraduate levels, as long as at least one member of any team is a Clark School student.

Questions to be Answered in the Video

Each video must answer the following questions in a two-minute presentation:

1. Target: What Clark School building, and what specific aspect of that building’s energy consumption, does your solar energy solution target? (More than one building may be targeted.)
2. Method: How would you minimize the targeted building’s power consumption using solar energy? Describe the technology that you would use to reduce consumption, including as appropriate the role of people who manage and work in the building.
3. Local Impact: Based on your best estimates, what would be the cost of implementing your solution and how much energy consumption would your solution achieve during one year of implementation?
4. Broader Impact: Why does reducing energy consumption matter not only for our campus but also for our nation and the world?

Submission

Post your video on YouTube and mark it as Unlisted. Submit the link for the video and the name(s), email(s), year(s) and major(s) of the video’s creator(s) to clark-communications@umd.edu  no later than 5 p.m., April 13, 2012.

Selection

A committee of Clark School faculty members will select the winning videos based, in large part, on their success in answering the questions listed above.

Prizes

The committee will offer:

• One (1) Graduate-Level Prize: $500, presentation of the video at the workshop, and a link to the video from the Clark School web site
• One (1) Undergraduate-Level Prize: $500, presentation of the video at the workshop, and a link to the video from the Clark School web site