The University of Colorado -- Boulder, the 2002 1st place winner.

Students at The University of Texas are building a house, and not just any house. They're putting the finishing touches on their scale model of a solar-powered house.

The UT SolarD Team designed and will soon build this house for the 2005 Solar Decathlon Competition.

"Basically, we have to make it function as if someone was living in the house and to show that solar power could power a person's day-to-day life," UT SolarD Team member Rachel Carson said.

	The University of Virginia -- the 2002 2nd place winner.

This includes everything from running household appliances to powering up an electric car.

And don't forget, this team will need hot water for cooking and showers.

"There are two devices we essentially use, one photovoltaic panel which we mounted on the roof. The other aspect is that we have to heat all of our hot water for washing dishes, doing laundry, as well as actually heating the house and all that heat will be produced by the evacuated tubes which are these which are mounted in the front as a shade screen," UT SolarD Team member Sunshine Mathon said.

	Auburn Univeristy, the 2002 3rd place winner.

The next step is to build the 800-sqaure-foot solar-powered house. They'll be building the house on a piece of property in East Austin which is already owned by the university.

Construction is set to begin Feb. 28.

In all it will cost about $300,000 to build the house and ship it to the National Mall in Washington. Once there in October, the team will compete in 10 contests against 18 other universities.

		WATCH THE VIDEO
	Solar home model The UT SolarD Team will build a house for the 2005 Solar Decathlon Competition.

"So they conceive of the project, design the project, model the project, build the project and then they are able to do post occupancy analysis after the building is complete," Professor of Architecture Michael Garrison said.

	2005 Teams
California Polytechnic State Univeristy – San Luis Obispo Carnegie Mellon, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh Concordia University and Université de Montréal Cornell University Crowder College Florida International University New York Institute of Technology Rhode Island School of Design Universidad Politéncia de Madrid University of Colorado – Denver and Boulder University of Maryland University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth University of Michigan University of Missouri – Rolla and the Rolla Technical Institute University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez University of Southern California The University of Texas at Austin Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Washington State University