Rock Me Mama Like a Wagon Wheel: Oak Ridge REMIX
We spent Monday and Tuesday of last week on site installing the counter top, fitting the window trim, and finishing up some electrical work. The punch list of things to do was steadily getting smaller, and our Baseline House was finally starting to look like a Home. We also revised our presentation to include more of the research we had done towards determining the details of the envelope of the Revised Home. It was important that we worked so hard in the beginning of the week, because on Wednesday, the team took a Field Trip to Knoxville, Tennessee where we toured Oak Ridge National Lab.
The four of us comfortably stuffed ourselves inside a Honda Fit, queued up the music, and enjoyed the beautiful 6-hour drive into central Tennessee. On the way, we thought about what we hoped to get out of the trip: suggestions for specific devices/instruments that we should use for our experiments, assurance that our procedures were reasonable and accurate, and a better understanding of how to conduct an occupancy experiment. With some help from our friends in Knoxville, we ate and slept well, before getting up bright and early the next morning for our tour.
Within the government fortress that is the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we checked in, received our badges, and made our way to the MAXLAB, where we met Dr. Piljae Im and Dr. Diana Hun. Our first stop included a tour of the massive environmental chambers: huge machines that test the efficiency of wall assemblies by manipulating indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, pressure, and radiation.
Afterwards, Dr. Im brought us to the MAXLAB’s latest “occupancy” test building, a commercial office building that was filled with sensors and recording devices, instead of people. As if the tour wasn’t incredibly enlightening enough, Dr. Im also took the time to listen to our quick explanation of our project and offer us his advice. We all exchanged contact information and promised to stay in touch.
Conveniently, we had a 6-hour drive to process everything we had just witnessed.
We somehow managed to make it back to Hale County just in time for some of Cat’s delectable squash casserole and baked chicken. After dinner, Dan Wheeler amazed us with notebooks full of beautiful sketches and images of his numerous collections, which include but are not limited to: salt shakers, hose nozzles, and neckties. Once we had witnessed his energetic lecture, we were excited but also a little worried we’d never be able to match his stamina in our own project presentation. Our fears were put to rest, however, when Dan reacted by giving valuable insight into the siting and orientation of the Revised Home, helping us clarify our method of wall assembly representation, and providing us with structural and material inspiration.
Your ORNL researcher wannabes,
