2015 Aqualibrium Competition

The 2015 Aqualibrium competition held in April saw some of the Western Cape’s bright young minds gather at UCT’s New Engineering Building. Eighteen teams of three from nine local schools took part in the event.

The morning kicked off with a warm-up challenge involving the elevation of a marshmallow by a structure built from spaghetti. With one minute to go and still no clear victor, team Parel Vallei 2’s Eiffel Tower like structure emerged highest.

Teams then headed into the lab for the main event. After some words and guidelines from the organisers, the SAICE WC chairman and UCT post grads teams commenced with the one hour challenge of constructing their model networks. The skill of the game is centred on selecting pipe sizes and a grid layout to achieve an equal flow per line into three reservoirs which requires a balance of planning and testing. The buzz of teamwork and trial runs was punctuated with splashes and reattempts and after a joint count down teams had opportunity to tour the civil engineering lab while model network testing was under way. After a lunch break the event organiser, Geoff du Toit spoke on the increasing need of young engineers in South Africa and thereafter handed out the prizes to the top three teams as well as some well deserved spirit prizes. We wish our victors Brakenfell 2 success as they represent the Western Cape at the 2015 national competition, and we wish the rest of the contestants well in their development into young professionals.