Washington – US channel CBS4 Denver reported on the International Solar Decathlon Africa, a competition held in Benguerir in which hundreds of students from different countries, including the United States, will have to design, build, and operate a full-sized solar-powered home.

Several students from the Colorado School of Mines are putting their engineering skills to the test against the rest of the world, said the US channel on Monday.

In its coverage, the channel focused on the team which calls itself Inter House and consists of students from the Colorado School of Mines, Cadi Ayyad University and the National School of Architecture of Marrakech, noting that the students have been in Morocco since early August and they have until Sept. 9 to finish building a meticulously designed, solar-powered home.

“It is (the home) using a lot of green-thinking and a lot of advanced technologies in a very small package,” John McDowell, a senior, told CBS4.

“McDowell didn’t make the trip, but played a big part in the design and preparation. The group chose to build certain parts of the home in Golden and then ship them across the world in a shipping container,” said the US channel.

According to McDowell, the students spent months carefully designing every part of the house. Before that, they learned while building a solar-powered tiny home on campus.

“We’re hoping that we do a really good job at competition so that we can show that this is maybe something worth pursuing and continuing for years to come,” McDowell said.

The student went on to say that the structure will stay in Morocco after the competition and could become a home or an office building.

Solar Decathlon Africa is an international competition for green buildings, which challenges collegiate teams to design, build and operate grid-connected, attractive and net-zero-energy houses during an eighteen-month period. In the final event of the competition, teams assemble their modular houses in the solar village and they are open to the general public, while undergoing the ten contests of the competition.

The event is held, under the patronage of HM King Mohammed VI, by the Ministry of Energy, Mining and sustainable development, the Moroccan Research Institute in Solar Energy and New Energy (IRESEN), and the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.