// So Tori and I just finished our Market Viability tour. It covers the three topics of buildability, marketability, and livability. I believe we hit each one rather well, but our biggest strength was definitely livability. The reason for this is that our house was built by undergraduate students, so that means it must be easy for a general contractor to build, but we lacked a strong construction management background to address it deeper. However, we're confident that our CD set shows how to build our home.

We hope we score well, but either way, we have Victori(a)! That was a play on words because victory is in tori's name, and she was an awesome partner with me on this.

// WE ARE CURRENTLY IN FIRST PLACE! To stay up with all the scoring, look at scoring .

Also, please vote for the people's choice house!
text "house31" to 99503

// Terrific start to the competition!!! I can't believe, well honestly I can, but I am just so please with how well we are doing! Our success isn’t solely in the competition aspect either; it is just how amazing our team is. We can really function in any setting! Whether is be at 4 in the morning packing up the house or in the hot sun just waiting for instructions, we shine. Today was a later start than we have been used to, except for Tim and Ross who had to start the contests at the crack of dawn. The rest of us headed over to the site between 9 and 11 in the morning. We had a decathlete picture (with our house in the background!) and then the opening ceremonies started! It was a fantastic motivation and congratulatory ceremony. Our very own Allison was chosen from the other decathletes to represent everyone with her speech! (Another congratulations for that wonderful talk).

Then the ribbon was cut to indicate the official beginning of the competition, during this time all the speakers chose, that is right CHOSE, to sit on our patio furniture while they waited. It was just a small gesture that was a HUGE honor. Then, Secretary Chu chose to have his 60 Minutes interview in our house! Out of the 20 beautiful houses on the mall, he chose ours!
Most people walking by our house express extreme satisfaction in our house (love is a common description). I find it amazing how much praise the house gets. It is so rewarding to know that after pouring our lives into this house, we get this much appreciation.
The rest of the day was VIP tours of the house. We realized that our original tour system wasn't the best method, especially because it is so easy to talk about our house for hours on end. So it was nice to have this day to figure out we were going too slowly before the huge crowds come around. SCU alums stopped by for a tour as well as the CCA Trustees. It is so nice to show our baby off. I can't wait for everyone else to see it during the public tours.

We are finally able to blog before midnight, so I am going to take advantage of the extra time and catch up on my homework... yes, we still have to do all our homework while we are in DC. Please keep your digits crossed for us! As of right now we are in 3rd place!!

// We're good to go! We had our final safety inspection, our site is clean, and the house looks great! We all spent time doing things different than our norm to get everything in order, but man are we happy. After our final safety inspection, we tossed our hard hats into the air and jumped with glee into the living room, where we promptly started dancing. It was great. We're on a boat!

Sadly, not all teams are quite ready yet, and we wish them the best of luck with their construction.

We did get a lot of media attention today, and even had a visit from Secretary Chu of the Department of Energy!

Now we're ready for the competition!

Also, on October 9th from 5-6 PM EST, we'll have students available on facebook and gchat (refracthouse) to answer any and all questions. We're looking forward to hearing from you.

// Competition is tomorrow! Well technically today...

The landscaping arrived completely and will finish going in tomorrow. The railings were finished and a little bit of testing begun. We got the controls and monitoring interface up. If you haven't heard about it, it is extremely neat! The interface is an easy to read monitor of energy and water usage that creates a constant dialogue between the resident and the home. The home can be controlled through by an iPhone. I am in the hotel while Justin is working on the controls and he can tell when someone is lowering the shades or turning on the lights. It is a really smart system!
Mike Splinter, CEO of Applied Materials, stopped by the house today for a private tour. He has given us amazing support, besides just being our presenting sponsor. Thank you Mike!
Everyone continues to work away! Each person has their own hours. For instance, some wake up at the crack of dawn to start work while others mosey out of bed a little later and work until the wee hours of the night. But everyone is working together. I got to watch a comical moment today that really displays the diversity of knowledge and talents within our team. Allison was looking for Preet to work on the communications tour. She walked around the deck looking at the ground shouting "Preet! Which part of the deck are you under?" For someone who didn't know that the visual communications lead was also the water team lead, I'm sure they would have wondered what Preet was.