Winners of the 2007 Phoenix - Shade Contest

Group 2 Phoenix 2007 Contest

About the 2007 Phoenix Contest

Shade Initiative Problems

PROBLEM A:

Creating Shade Phoenix gets very hot in the summertime, often reaching over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Part of the Mayor’s Sustainability Initiative is a plan to shade the downtown, both with trees and shade structures. Temperatures in the shade can be a full twenty degrees cooler on hot days. Your task is to devise the most cost-efficient way to distribute trees and structures throughout the downtown area so that the sidewalks and public spaces are shaded for the duration of the working day (8-5). You will be expected to take into account the movement of the sun and shade provided by existing buildings. For a blueprint of downtown Phoenix, see http://phoenix.gov/urbanformproject/

Be creative! An old farming technique in hot regions is to plant trees in cross shapes to provide shade for the cows at all times of the day.

Explicitly state the assumptions that you make in your model. In addition to a paper you will be expected to provide a map of the downtown, clearly marked with the sites of the trees and shade structures.

PROBLEM B:

Algorithm for Small Businesses Design a computer program that a small business could utilize to make recommendations on where to plant trees on their land to provide shade. There should be a way for the program to accept parameters allowing the user to customize the recommendations to their particular situation.