Solar Decathlon Solar Decathlon The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Decathlon is a collegiate competition, comprising 10 contests, that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. The winners will be those teams that best blend design architectural and engineering excellence with innovation, market potential, building efficiency, and smart energy production. In the summer of 2018, DOE merged its two student building design competitions into one Solar Decathlon competition. The combined competition features two tracks, the Design Challenge and the Build Challenge. The Solar Decathlon provides a hands-on experience and unique training that
United States Academic Decathlon President of the Orange County Academic Decathlon Association put it in 1970), but also to "change C students' lives". The inaugural competition, held in December 1968, hosted 103 students from 20 local high schools. At first only regional contests were held, organized by the Orange County Academic Decathlon Corporation (OCAD) with the assistance of the Orange County Department of Education. In 1971, when the grand jury recommended that the Orange County Department of Education should no longer play a part in the competition, full control was handed over to the OCAD. In 1979, the first statewide competition was held, and