Thursday, October 08, 2009

Cheap dates Oct. 8

Cheap Dates
Torpedo Factory Art Night
Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union St., and the Alexandria Archaeology Museum are open late, from 6 to 9 p.m. today, with a special Archaeology Month theme.
Information is available from torpedofactory.org/thursday.htm.

Farmers market
Dumfries hosts a farmers market with produce, crafts, gourmet items, ciders, music, children and youth activities, pony rides and more.
The market is Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Dumfries United Methodist Church,  3890 Cameron St., Dumfries, 22026, at the corner of Washington and Cameron streets.
More information is available by calling 703-221-7440.

Arts Safari, museum open house
Alexandria Archaeology Museum, 105 North Union Street, #327 has an Arts Safari and museum open house Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.
The free event is a family-oriented, hands-on activity, when participants can draw or paint patterns on paper inspired by designs from salt-glazed pottery shards excavated from local archaeological sites. Information is available from alexandriaarchaeology.org or by calling 703-838-4399.

Solar Decathlon on National Mall
The 2009 Solar Decathlon, free to the public, opens Friday on the National Mall. The decathlon is an international event in which the U.S. Department of Energy challenges university teams to design and build homes that run entirely on solar energy. The teams ship their partially constructed homes to the mall, assemble them, and then competes in 10 contests, including architecture, engineering, market viability, communications, comfort, appliances, water heating, lighting, home entertainment. Teams also participate in a special two-part net metering competition, when they’re rated on their energy production, but get a bonus for producing more energy than their home consumes.
The homes are open from Friday to Tuesday and from Oct. 15 to 18, and are open for tours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.
More than 800 student competitors from the U.S., Canada, Spain, and Germany, who have been deisgning and building since their teams were chosen two years ago, will compete this year. Students will have to perform everyday tasks, such as cooking, doing the laundry and washing dishes, to test their homes’ energy efficiency.
Participants include Penn State; Cornell University; Virginia Tech; Rice; Universidad Politegrave de Madrid, Spain; and Technische Universitaumlt Darmstadt, Germany.