In the spring of 2021, B&O set out to compile all the necessary information to design and build a solar bike shed for our partner at Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) Tompkins in their Green Energy Workforce Training Center. The goal of this project was to provide the information necessary for the attendees of the local Green Jobs Training and Environmental Literacy classes to be able to design and construct a solar bike shed in downtown Ithaca.

The B&O sub-team put together a lesson plan outlining the required steps to assemble a solar bike shed, including considerations in energy demand, material limitations, and construction. Some pieces of the solar bike shed have less variability, such as costs of typical materials and insulation efficiency. But, some of the design is, of course, left up to the discretion of the reader, such as how many walls the bike shed will consist of, to which we provided pros and cons to help guide the decision making process. The document was structured in a user-friendly format, featuring a hyperlinked table of contents, frequent images and figures, and interspaced questions to ensure readers would be comfortable with the key points in the material along the way.