VOA标准英语2011--Student Architects Shine in Solar Energy

Student Architects Shine in Solar Energy Contest

Dreams and designs of young architects are shining brightly in Washington at the bi-annual Solar Decathlon.
They have come from around the world, college students combining their education with their imagination to create homes of the future that could be built now. Nineteen teams have built their creations in downtown Washington DC this year at the fifth U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.
Each home generates power from solar panels attached to the roof. Usually when the sun is out, more power is generated then used and the excess energy is sent to the public power grid¹. At night, the reverse happens and power is drawn² from the grid. The solar houses are designed to have a net zero power use over time, sending and using equal amounts of electricity.
Richard King, the Director of the Solar Decathlon, said "The Solar Decathlon challenges schools of architecture and engineering to design from the ground up a highly efficient solar powered house. We started this program back in 2002 to challenge these universities, our best and brightest, to design beautiful homes. The object was to educate the students, [and] also educate the public."
The public will get to see and walk through the homes through October 2.
Richard King says these are not just conceptual models."These houses are fully³ functional⁴. And they have a lot of components⁵ in them that are directly useable by homeowners today," he said.
Some of those components include simple items like insulation⁶ in the home built by the team from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
"We have 240 millimeters of wool insulation in the walls," said 24-year-old Ben Jagersma, the technology leader of his team. "So it is like a big wooly⁷ blanket, which keeps the house warm in the winter time."
But with the shading elements of the canopy⁸, the tints⁹ on the windows, also keeps it cool in the summer months as well."
Interior designer 27-year-old Anna Falrow hopes the design of the 'First Light' home will separate their entry from the rest. "I think something that is maybe a little different with our house that it is a completely open plan. We do not have segregated¹⁰ rooms in the house apart from the bathroom and the laundry. The rest of the space is all one," she said.
Also with a unified¹¹ space design is the team from Tongji University in Shanghai, China. Hua Guodong, the 23-year-old architecture leader, explained his 'Y-Container' concept.
"Y shape is a really flowing shape. The common residential¹² house has some fixed¹³ divisions, different rooms. But in our Y-Container house there is no fixed compartment¹⁴, no fixed division. You can see every angle from one branch of the Y-Container," he said.
The Y-Container revolves¹⁵ around the triangle shape. Hua's team also created more useful items from the simple shape.
"We designed a special triangle furniture which can be chairs, which also can be combined, integrated into a desk, and can also be the cabinets," he said.
Along with 15 U.S. universities are other international entries from Canada and Belgium, which have each spent nearly two years designing, building and testing their homes before shipping¹⁶ the components to Washington.
Solar Decathlon Director Richard King said, "Climate change, housing, energy are global concerns. In order to solve the problems, we need to work together, everybody. So we have invited international schools here to bring their culture, bring their design techniques, and do this cross fertilization and show each other how we can all live sustainably together."
As with the Olympic Decathlon, this competition includes 10 contests designed to assess how well the houses perform and how livable and affordable¹⁷ they are. Each contest is worth a maximum of 100 points, for a competition total of 1,000 points. The winners will be announced October 1.

1 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

2 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

5 components   

（机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分

参考例句：

• the components of a machine 机器部件
• Our chemistry teacher often reduces a compound to its components in lab. 在实验室中化学老师常把化合物分解为各种成分。

6 insulation   

n.隔离；绝缘；隔热

参考例句：

• Please examine the insulation of the electric wires in my house.请检查一下我屋子里电线的绝缘情况。
• It is always difficult to assure good insulation between the electric leads.要保证两个电触头之间有良好的绝缘总是很困难的。

7 wooly   

adj.毛茸茸的；糊涂的

参考例句：

• I like the feel of this cloth and it has a warm wooly feel.我喜欢这块布的手感,它摸上去毛茸茸的很暖和。
• He wore a brown t-shirt with jeans and a pair of shoes,with a wooly hat covering his hair.小贝身穿一件棕色t恤，搭配牛仔裤和皮鞋，头戴一顶盖住头发的羊毛帽子。

8 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

9 tints   

色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹

参考例句：

• leaves with red and gold autumn tints 金秋时节略呈红黄色的树叶
• The whole countryside glowed with autumn tints. 乡间处处呈现出灿烂的秋色。

10 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。

11 unified   

(unify 的过去式和过去分词)； 统一的； 统一标准的； 一元化的

参考例句：

• The teacher unified the answer of her pupil with hers. 老师核对了学生的答案。
• The First Emperor of Qin unified China in 221 B.C. 秦始皇于公元前221年统一中国。

12 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

13 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

14 compartment   

n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间

参考例句：

• We were glad to have the whole compartment to ourselves.真高兴，整个客车隔间由我们独享。
• The batteries are safely enclosed in a watertight compartment.电池被安全地置于一个防水的隔间里。

15 revolves   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想

参考例句：

• The earth revolves both round the sun and on its own axis. 地球既公转又自转。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Thus a wheel revolves on its axle. 于是，轮子在轴上旋转。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

17 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。