UT Austin Sustainable Dog House Challenge
Be sure to check out the Wiki for even more information!
The Sustainable Dog House Challenge (SDHC) was started at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016 by Dr. Richard L. Corsi, the department chair at the time. Dr. Corsi combined his love of dogs, passion for sustainability, and ideals from the department to bring students this challenge. Click the image below to watch the video about this year's competition.
What is the SDHC?
The purpose of the SDHC is to bring students together so they can learn about sustainable design. Students are tasked with scavenging materials from around the greater-Austin area to build a physical model that can safely and comfortably house a medium-sized dog at minimum. The more creative that students can re-puprose materials, the better and in the competition's history we have seen students build houses from old canoes, busted dumpsters, and even lightweight concrete with recycled materials as the aggregate.
The competition is held in early April of the Spring semester where students display their creations for their peers and passerbys alike. Judges made up from professors, UT staff, graduate students, alumni, and professionals from the area are in charge of scoring the students' creations in various categories:
- Sustainability: Did students recycle all their materials? Did they spend any money? How did they source their materials?
- Craftsmanship: How does the final product look? Are their any finishing touches that really set the dog house apart or does it look like the dog house has been put together last minute?
- Structure: Is the structure flimsy? Can it withstand a tree limb falling on it? Can the structure shelter the dog from the rain, snow, sun, wind?
- Comfort: Will a dog want to use the shelter? Are their any exposed screws, nails, sharp edges etc. that might harm the dog?
- Healthy: Are the materials off-gassing any harmful substances? Is there mold growing on the recycled materials? Are the materials safe for the dog if they were to bite/lick the materials?
- Innovation: Did students grab recylced wood only or did they go above and beyond to source more unique materials? Are there any other features like solar panels, rain-water collectors, etc. that where incorporated into the design?
If you want to learn more, head over to the Wiki pages or feel free to explore the folders in this repository.
How do I participate?
The event is open to all students in the Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) department at UT Austin. For more on the rules, head over to the Rules page on the Wiki.
Make sure at least one member of your team pops into one of the two info sessions that we are hosting the week of February 1st. The links for these meetings can be found on the Important Dates page of the Wiki. You must sign in with your UT Zoom account to join the meeting. You will get more detailed information about the challenge and ask any questions you might have.
After attending an info session: do you have a team ready or are you a free agent looking for others to partner with? In either case, make sure one member of your team fills out this form to register for the competition. The competition organizer will be reaching out to you soon after you register. Be sure to check the Important Dates page for the registration deadline. If the deadline has passed, but you still think you should be able to enter, raise an issue (be sure to tag with "Participation") or email the competition organizer.
After you have filled out the registration form, you are set to start designing your dog house! The competition organizer will be checking in with you periodically, but please email them if you drop a member or wish to add a new member to the team. Be sure to head over to the Rules page to make sure they are eligible or don't push you into the upper-division (if you are lower).
Can I get involved?
Absolutely! The organizers are always looking for extra help. Please email the competition organizer (see [Organizing Committe]() page) if you would wish to help out with the current or future events.
How do I work this website?
We are using Github because we can upload documents about the competition, pictures, and other files from this and previous years of the challenge. Most of the information that you need about the actual competition can be found on the wiki pages, but another nice aspect of Github that we are leveraging for this competition is the issues tab that you can find at the top. Here, participants and others can "raise" issues to ask questions, give feedback/suggestions, and anything else they think is pertinent to the competition.
The [video]() below gives a little overview of how to use this specific Github repository to its fullest extend.