Turns out that there's a lot going on upstairs. Green roof tech is heating up -- or rather, getting cooler, and the masterminds behind two promising sustainable rooftop inventions are actually still in high school.
Even though 1980s clothes are considered vintage and I had to explain to the girl who bought my old manual camera that it required this stuff called "film," the annual Lemelson-MIT EurekaFest reminds me that the kids are alright. More than alright -- they're going to save us. I'm a little late to be talking about the mid-June gathering of high school teams that come up with problem-solving inventions because of my cross-country move, but making a better roof is timeless.
Want plants on your house but have a funky-shaped roof? No problem. The team from Hillside New Tech High School in Durham, North Carolina, came up with a structure that makes it possible to grow plants on sloped rooftops. Their lattice-system contains modified roof air vents and vine boxes lined with polyurethane foam that anchors the plants, replacing soil. Clamps attached to the roof's sideboard hold the lattice in place. The system costs $10 to $20 per square yard.
"The object of the invention is to have the vines grow through the lattice to cover the roof and provide natural shade," explains Sidhartha Jandhyala, a student member of the Hillside team. "Also, we are targeting storm water runoff and the urban heat island effect." A hydroponic system with a solar-powered water pump sends rainwater from a collection barrel to the plants through drip irrigation.
When it rains, the water is captured by the rain barrels instead of running off and leaking pollution into nearby streams and lakes, says Victor Abiona, another student on the team. Hillside currently has a prototype of the roof on the school campus that the team is testing. Ultimately they'd like to patent it and get the structure onto local rooftops in Durham.
Washington County Technical High School from Hagerstown, Maryland, invented a color-changing roof that lightens in hot weather and darkens when it gets cold. Their system reminds me a little bit of the temperature-sensitive Thermeleon roof tiles that a group of MIT grads created last year from polymer sandwiched between flexible plastic, except it has a different mechanism. Their system has a gear-driven system of black and white tubes that run perpendicular to the roof's drip edge and rotate at pre-determined temperatures. The whole thing can switch from dark to light. During the winter, warm air collected in the tubes could potentially be pumped back inside the house.
"The system can run on very low voltage," says Alan Zube, a pre-engineering teacher at the high school who mentored the team. "The needed energy could easily be generated with a 20W photovoltaic cell mounted on the roof." Initially the team used PVC for the tubes but found after testing that aluminum would work better. Eventually the team would like to realize a full-sized prototype of their invention.
Solid rooftops can last lifetimes so I'm relieved that these high school kids are focused on this crucial part of green building now. Perhaps by the time the students reach middle age, most rooftops will be able to take care of themselves.
Photo: The student team from Hillside New Tech High School shows off its green roof latticework at EurekaFest. Courtesy of the Lemelson-MIT program.
Tags: Buildings and Structures, Cooling, Green Building, Green Tech, Inventions
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