It’s been a while since our last post, and you might be able to guess why! Our team has pulled all-nighter after all-nighter to get our final report in. We have been busy crunching numbers, generating figures, and writing about all of our design decisions over the past year. Today, after a grueling 48 hours without sleep for some of us, we submitted our final two volume 100 page report that details plans for a new Middlebury Elementary school.

We are immensely proud of our work thus far, but it doesn’t stop here! In the next week our team must prepare for what the Judges have jokingly referred to as “the shark tank”.  We will develop new presentation materials and delve deeper into our design so that we can concisely defend every decision we’ve made. And while our written submission is final for the judges, our team will continue editing our document until we know that it is fully complete.

What’s next you may ask? Quite a bit! April 19th our team will split in two, half of us traveling to Denver to present at the National Renewable Energy Lab, and half of us staying in Middlebury to present at the Spring student symposium. Then in May our team will then present our final design to the Middlebury select board. Our team is now primarily tasked with effectively communicating all the hard work we’ve done and refining a few last minute details.

But before we begin to write and rehearse presentations, another perhaps more important task awaits us. Right this moment across campus our team members are emerging from dark rooms and breathing a sigh of relief that our report is finally in. Many of us owe friends and parents a phone call to explain our recent absence, and all of us could use a full night’s sleep. So goodnight to you all, and thank you for your continued support!

-Alex Browne ’18 Electrical/Plumbing/Building Codes