Reem Habib (left), a UCI urban planning and civil engineering major, and Team Orange County teammate Andy Truong, work on a specially-designed diffuser that will be used with a cold water tank to help cool the solar-powered house they are building.

Teagan Barnes, left, and Reem Habib, two of the women engineering students on the Team Orange County Solar Decathlon team, stand on the spray-painted outlines of what will become the solar-powered house they are helping build.

Members of the Team Orange County Solar Decathlon team at their Irvine Valley College work site. From left: Teagan Barnes, Will Vicent (an SCE adviser), Moritz Limpinsel, Paige Svehlak, Jack Brouwer, UCI engineering professor and decathlon adviser, and Reem Habib.