120 sensors in Santa Clara house

Where computer technology meets building technology. One of the equipment rooms in Santa Clara University's solar house is the control point for centralizing data from 120 sensors in the house.

The sensors can automatically detect and adjust lighting, temperature and other factors. The students wrote software that gathers the information and displays it on a graphical user interface.

The program tells residents how much power they are consuming at a given moment and, when compared with typical homes, an idea of how much greenhouse gas emissions they are offsetting by having a solar home.

Another high-tech touch from a Silicon Valley university are "electrochromatic windows" that darken to shade light automatically during hot times. The house will be used back on campus after the competition for research and for public education.