Welcome to Alyssia's Corner

Hi, my name is Alyssia and I am a senior at MAST Academy.  I have taken a class focused alternative resources and solar energy and have become very interested in the field of “green” energy.  That’s why I am so excited to be interning with FIU’s EGB group.

November 7, 2007

Dr.Zhu came by to give us an update on the Future House where FIU is representing the USA.  Nine other countries will have their house on display in Beijing in a ten-house village.  The purpose of Future House is to showcase new environmentally-friendly and sustainable alternatives for housing.  Currently, the Future House is being completed.  It took less than three weeks to assemble it because of its innovative “panel walls” that each take a little less than an hour to nail down and secure.  Each panel is a sandwich of drywall and insulation that can easily fit to one another like wood flooring.  Also, there are marks on the panels to show where electrical wires can be slipped into.  A lot of work has been put into the house and it looks great, even if the Beijing skies don’t always look as good.

October 23rd, 2007

In order to recruit students from different majors to EGB, we held a new members meeting to inform prospective members of EGB’s mission statement, vision and goals which were presented by Dr.Tao and the officers of the club through a PowerPoint presentation.  It was an important meeting because people of diverse disciplines need to collaborate in order to build and market new products and ideas.  In fact, this is part of EGB’s mission statement, which is to promote integration of economics, the government, and technology into the world of green technology.  Furthermore, the club’s vision is to provide a unique educational experience to its members.  Additionally, the meeting clarified the meaning of green technology and ways the club has proven that it can be applied to everyday life.  The definition of a green lifestyle is being able to attain economic prosperity while protecting natural systems.  One of EGB’s greatest accomplishments to date is the solar house, Engawa, a Japanese term for the link of inside and outside; they entered in the 2005 Solar Decathlon which was displayed in Washington D.C.  In fact, it was displayed on a show about houses that use alternative energy on HGTV.  For the future, a couple of club members have suggested converting the solar house to one that uses hydrogen as its source of energy.