Today was one of the busiest days that I have had for competition so far (yes, I know, its only day two of the competition). There was so much happening today that it felt like I was constantly on my feet doing something, and barely having any time to rest.

Today we had several measured contests (clothes washing and drying, water boiling, dish washing, water draws, lighting etc.) while we had three jury tours and a dinner party, not to mention touring! The engineering jury tour was first up at 9:30, so we had a mad scramble to clean up and perform our water draw test before they arrived. The tour seemed to go well, and was followed up by public tours until about 12. We had lots of people through the house, with a lot of varying questions.

After 12pm, public tours ended and we were in competition mode. Part of the competition states that we need at least 2 occupants in the house at all times (between 8am and 8pm), so I was locked inside our house for a few hours with Mandy, so we could perform our house tests. The purpose of these tests is to show that our house can operate and perform common tasks that are performed most days, such as cooking or clothes washing.

Being locked inside a ‘bubble’ with Mandy for 2 hours was an… interesting experience, filled with highs, lows and mild freak outs, but it was lots of fun. We boiled off our water in less time than we required, and we finally worked out a good way to perform our drying task. I never thought I would have such a stressful time boiling water or washing towels, and yet somehow this competition has made rethink everything about these tasks, and forced us to remember to hang out the washing IMMEDIATELY after the cycle finishes. Unfortunately, Mandy is leaving tonight, but has left us extensive instructions on how to boil water and wash clothes perfectly (I don’t think I could manage to boil water properly without you Mandy)!

In the evening, I was selected to represent our team at the dinner party hosted by TDIS, the team from Taiwan. They put up 6 amazing dishes, and we had a great time learning how to speak some Taiwanese, Italian and Arabic from the teams at the dinner. We had some great conversation about everyone’s experience with the competition so far, and what everyone wants to do in Dubai when everyone finally gets some time off. Hopefully I get to go to some more dinners, because all the other teams sound like they have put up some amazing food.