Panamanian media interviews
student on solar light pipe team

Word of Texas A&M's solar light pipe design, which won an award in April at a national sustainability contest in Washington D.C., has reached Central America.

While visiting Panama last June, Panamanian environmental design major Oscar Diaz discussed the pipe project on two television newscasts and in an article published in La Prensa, a Panamanian newspaper. The prototype device is used to illuminate building interiors with natural sunlight, which is collects and funnels it through a pipe made of highly reflective material.

Liliana Beltrán, associate professor of architecture, led Diaz and a student team in the design and construction of the pipe at the College of Architecture's digital fabrication facility at Texas A&M's Riverside campus. The project was awarded $75,000 in April at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) competition in Washington D. C. and is now in its second phase of development.

In addition to being one of the project's presenters in Washington, Diaz helped build the pipe, prepared illustrations and documents for its presentation and is working with Beltrán and co-principal investigator José Fernández-Solis, assistant professor of construction science, on Phase II drawings.

"I also met with Panama's national minister of energy, who oversees the country's energy policy," said Diaz, a Fellow of Panama's National Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation. "He wanted to meet me and was interested in my education at Texas A&M and the project."

Read more about the project's win in D.C.

- Posted: July 12, 2010 -

Contact:   Phillip Rollfing, prollfing@archone.tamu.edu or 979.458.0442.