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Opportunities Growing for Algonquin College Students on Windmill Development Group Project

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Opportunities Growing for Algonquin College Students on Windmill Development Group Project
Morning event serves as update for multiple projects underway or starting soon on the former Domtar lands in downtown Ottawa.

(Ottawa, December 4, 2014) It’s not every day students get to contribute to the development and construction of Canada’s most sustainable mixed-use community. But as Windmill Development Group and Algonquin College come together to re-sign the MOU originally signed in March 2014, the opportunities for students are growing and taking shape.
“Hands-on projects with real-world applications give our students the skills, knowledge, and experience they expect from an Algonquin College education,” says Cheryl Jensen, President of Algonquin College. “We are so pleased to be able to connect our students and employees with Windmill Development Group on this ground-breaking project. Years from now, we will be able to look at this environmental showpiece and say, ‘Algonquin College students helped make it happen’.”
As the College and Windmill work together to transform 37 acres of land into a world-class, sustainable waterfront community near the Chaudière Bridge overlooking Parliament Hill, students from Architectural Technology, Green Architecture, Horticultural Industries, Water and Waste Water Technician, and Applied Museum Studies (just to name a few) will have a variety of projects to contribute.
“This is one of the most important projects in our City’s history, and Algonquin College and its students are honoured to be part of it,” says Richard Briginshaw, program coordinator of the Green Architecture program at Algonquin College, and Co-Chair of the Algonquin College on the Isles committee. “We strongly believe our students will play a critical role in the development of Windmill’s vision.”
Architectural Technology students have completed their site analysis and have begun preliminary design work for 10 sustainable building design projects culminating as their third year project. Environmental Management and Assessment students will be sampling and conducting their own soil and ground water research, while also analyzing past reports. Finally, Applied Museum Studies students will be completing an integrated framework and an integrated master plan of the site. Some of the upcoming opportunities for student involvement include the development of multimedia materials, the restoration of stonework, and market research.
For more information on the AC on the Isles Project and the partnership between Algonquin College and Windmill, please visit www.algonquincollege.com/isles.
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For more information, please contact:
Phil Gaudreau
Communications Officer, Algonquin College
Phone: 613-727-4623 ext 2091
Email: gaudrep@algonquincollege.com
Email preferred

Solar Decathlon FINAL UPDATES!

Saturday, October 12th – update from Rick Briginshaw, Coordinator of the Green Architecture program –

“Hi Everyone,

We just found out that we took FIRST PLACE overall in the Engineering contest, and 6th PLACE OVERAL for the entire competition!!!!

The team is thrilled with those results! See links provided previously for detailed results.”

 

Friday, October 11th– update from Rick Briginshaw, Coordinator of the Green Architecture program

“Hello Everyone,

Well, after yesterday’s great results, we were brought back to earth a bit today with the Communications and Architecture contests, coming in 8th place in each. Still respectable results, but our team was hoping to do better.

With those results, we have slipped to 8th place overall, still very respectable, and we are hopeful to do well in tomorrow’s final competition: Engineering.

More public tours take place today, followed by an evening reception for all participants, and an open house for all teams to visit each other’s homes and socialize some more.”

For those keeping track here is how we did

  • First place in Engineering
  • Second place in Affordability
  • Tied for first place in Energy Balance
  • Tied for first place in Hot Water
  • Fourth place in Market Appeal.
  • SIXTH PLACE OVERALL

Check out the results of the Solar Decathlon competition here – http://www.solardecathlon.gov/blog/archives/2872 . Also, notice that there is a picture of Team Ontario’s house featured on the results page! Great job to everyone from Algonquin College, Carleton University and Queen’s University!!

 

UPDATE 5 – Some great news for Team Ontario’s Solar Decathlon entry…..

Our latest update from the Team Ontario ECHO entry into the Solar Decathlon comes again from Rick Briginshaw, the Coordinator for the Green Architecture program.

“Hello from California!

The last three days have been fairly
quiet since the houses have been closed to the public for jury
walkthroughs. I just got back from the first of three consecutive award
ceremonies (today, Friday and Saturday) and we have some EXCELLENT NEWS!
….

Today they announced that we took 2nd
PLACE in the Affordability Contest, and 4th PLACE in the
Market Appeal contest!!

With those results, we have moved
from 9th place overall to 3rd PLACE OVERALL!…
http://www.solardecathlon.gov/scores.html

Our team is thrilled with
those results! The next two contest announcements will be Architecture
and Communications, announced Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m.
EST) You can watch a live stream of the announcements here… http://www.solardecathlon.gov/videos-livestreams.html

The final awards ceremony will
be this Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m. EST) where they will announce
the winners of the Engineering contests and the overall winners.

Also… perhaps equally important (??),
this morning we had a friendly (?) street hockey game against Team Alberta,
on Main Street in the Solar Decathlon village, and we are proud to report that
Team Ontario won!! As a result, the lead student manager from Team
Alberta has to spend the day wearing a Team Ontario shirt!”

UPDATE 4 – Solar Decathlon commences…….

ECHO House - October 4, 2013 - Visit by Kent MacDonald

Don’t forget to place your vote for the ECHO house as the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon People’s Choice award – Follow this link to register your vote!

 

OCTOBER 7, 2013 UPDATE – This new update comes from Rick Briginshaw, Coordinator of the Green Architecture program who is on-site at the competition…..

“Hello Everyone!

There has been lots of activity here at the Solar Decathlon over the last few days!

October 2nd – with construction and preparations complete, the students and faculty attended a formal dinner for all the teams, hosted by Bosch, followed by an open house at all the Solar Decathlon houses. The teams got to know each other, and explore each other’s houses, a great learning opportunity for them. In spite of the fact that we are competitors, there is an overriding feeling of camaraderie among all the teams.

October 3rd – Opening Day! Students and faculty attended the opening ceremonies and ribbon cutting in the morning. The ECHO team waved the Canadian flag proudly, and were excited to start showing off their creation! The houses were then opened to the public, and the individual contests began. Students and faculty were honoured to attend a dinner hosted by President Kent MacDonald, and representatives of Orange Coast College.

October 4th – Public visits and contests continued. The site was shut down for a couple of hours due to high winds, but reopened in the afternoon. The team was excited to have a visit from President Kent MacDonald, who toured the ECHO house, along with several of the other houses at the competition site.

October 5th – The ECHO team hosted a formal dinner (one of the standard individual contests) at the house, for some of our sponsors and members of other teams. By all accounts it was a great success.

October 6th – Public visits and competitions continued.

SCORES AND STANDINGS – you can follow along the scores and standings here… http://www.solardecathlon.gov/scores.html

We are currently in 10th place out of 19 teams, but the scores change daily, and as you can see, there is very little separating the top 12 teams.

 

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD – we need your help with this! Please vote for TEAM ONTARIO at the Solar Decathlon home page! http://www.solardecathlon.gov/ And please help us by spreading the word around Algonquin College and beyond. If anyone has other contacts that could help us get more votes, please feel free to use them!

Our students are totally engaged in showing the ECHO house, and continue to demonstrate that they are first class all the way.”

Visit our Flikr gallery to see more photos of the ECHO house and it’s current home in Irvine, California.

 

 

UPDATE 3 on the ECHO house / Team Ontario by Jacob Morgan

The race to the finish line is officially over! As of 12:25pm yesterday, we have completed the construction phase of the competition and have now moved on to the showcase. All in all everything went extremely smoothly and on schedule. The last few days we had very dedicated volunteers put in a few 19 hour days to get everything done, and boy was it ever worth it.
Everyone yesterday just stood back for a few seconds in disbelief that not only was ECHO finally here in California, but that it looks as amazing as it does.
And may I say that there is no way we could have ever done this without the help of all the faculty that came down and grabbed a hammer and chipped in.

 

We have already gotten many compliments from other teams and volunteers on everything from our paint colour to our exostructure and siding. After sizing up the other teams, we truly believe we have a good chance at top 5 and are very much hoping to achieve that. Today is a half day and will be media preview and team unveilings, and then the first day of public tours and competitions starts bright and early tomorrow!

 

On behalf of the team I just wanted to thank you for your continued support and all your warm wishes. We have made it through the hardest part and couldn’t have done this without you either. More updates to follow as the competitions unfold.

 

Warm regards,

Jacob Morgan

Construction
Manager,Team Ontario

U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013

UPDATE 2 – ECHO House prepped for Solar Decathlon start

 

 

ECHO house ECHO house

With the start of the Solar Decathlon on October 3rd students and faculty from Team ECHO worked feverishly to complete the reconstruction of the ECHO house. Below is an update from the competition site provided by Rick Briginshaw.

“Hi Everyone,

It has been extremely busy here over the last three days, as we worked toward the completion deadline of today (Oct. 1st) at noon. Very glad to report that we completed our construction on time, passed all of our inspections, systems are working, and the house looks great!

Sept. 28 – Construction of our exterior decking, installation of the PV panels, solar thermal panels, and roofing.

Sept. 29 – Received our first allotment of water, charged up the water and electrical systems, both passed inspections. The PV array was producing 6 kwh in the late afternoon, and had produced about 90 kw through the day. More work on exterior decking, ramps and railings. Interior painting, and starting to set up furniture in the bedrooms. Work was done on thecontrol hardware and software for the mechanical and electrical systems.

Sept. 30 – Big push to complete as much as possible today, with the deadline looming the next day at noon. Everyone worked until the 2:00 a.m. cutoff. Window glass finally arrived after an error by the supplier, and was installed. Finishing of ramps and railings, enclosing the water tanks to improve appearance, landscaping, more interior painting, setting up furniture in the main living area, fine tuning the control system and wireless application. Final testing of systems.

Oct. 1 – Finishing various odds and ends, and complete cleanup of the site.

The students have all done an amazing job and should be proud of their accomplishment. At any given time we had up to 20 students of various backgrounds working side by side – college and university alike.

 

Thanks also go out to professor Andy Nita, who spent several days working with the students on the electrical system; professor Greg Kenny, who provided construction expertise for three solid days; and professors Mark Bell and Lachlan Oddie, who arrived late Sunday were a big help with the final push at the end.

Looking ahead, tomorrow is media preview day and opening reception. The site officially opens to the public on Thursday, Oct. 3rd.”

 

Congratulations to TEAM ECHO and good luck at the competition!