SAICE WC Branch The South African Institution of Civil Engineering Western Cape Branch

2017 SAICE-WC Bridge Building Competition

SAICE-WC Model Bridge Building Competition 2017

Another edition of the SAICE-WC Model Bridge Building Competition was held at Canal Walk on 20 May 2017. 31 teams of learners from 25 schools participated from across the greater Cape Town region and beyond! The competition has evolved over the years but fundamentally teams of three need to build a bridge with the materials provided that can span a set distance determined by the judges. The teams have rules they need to comply with regarding the method of construction and functional internal and external parameters that need to be met. They also have a limited amount of time to build the bridge and are not allowed assistance from their teachers, parents, or smart-phones.

After some brief introductions the event commenced with a lecture by Evan Arendse of BEPSA consulting engineers titled “The tale of two bridges” whereby he illustrated the mechanisms via which bridges work in tension, compression and shear through the stories of two iconic bridges and what worked, or didn’t work. He also gave a taste of the future of bridges as grander projects are launched with advanced construction materials and political vision! There after the rules of the competition were explained and the learners enthusiastically got to work. This year the span to be achieved was 820mm while an additional limitation had been placed on the teams by the imposition of a height restriction of 160mm.

Many of the teams were new to the competition and came up with some new and novel bridge designs which had even the experienced structural engineers curious to know how they would perform. Teams were also encouraged to decorate their bridges and make them more interesting for the new “People’s Choice” award. This new award recognised the bridges, judged by the students themselves, to be the most interesting and attractive.

Bridges are judged based on their aesthetics, their weight and the load that they can carry. The points system is the sum of the aesthetics of the bridge as determined by the judges and the mass carried by the bridge divided by the mass of the bridge.

The breaking of the bridges commenced at 4pm and was overseen by our structural judging team of Sheila Ross, Andrew Rowan and Kenny Mudenda while Andrew Clothier and Andrew Rowan provided rolling commentary of the bridges performance. In the end it all came down to experience and the defending champions, Brackenfell High School, took first place with a breaking load of 295kg. In second place was Parklands High School with a breaking load of 185kg, and narrowly behind in third place was the College of Cape Town with a breaking load of 165kg. The people’s choice award was won by Glendale High School for a very neat arch bridge while Oude Molen got the award for the best spirit – and the most extensive health and safety kit on standby!
Click for table of results.

Well done to all the teams that competed and a special thanks to all the sponsors who made the event happen, especially Alcolin and Best Woods for the provision of materials, Asla Construction for sponsoring the venue, Peninsula Beverages and the assistance of a number of the engineering consulting firms namely JG Afrika, HHO Africa, Aurecon, Kantey & Templer, Mott MacDonald, SMEC, Lyners, KFD Wilkenson, Element and Triamic.

2016 Aqualibrium Competition

9 April 2016, UCT New Engineering Building.

April 9, 2016 saw the running of the inaugural SAICE Aqualibrium Water Competition hosted by UCT’s Civil Engineering Department. The competition saw seventeen teams of three high school students battle it out for the honor of being the Western Cape regional champion and become the Western Cape’s representative at the National Competition in Johannesburg later this year. This year’s competition saw a number of schools participating for the first time including Swartland High School as well as Somerset College. A first for this year’s competition, was also the trial of a number of new rules including setting goal volumes in each reservoir other than 1000ml each, and trialing a new judging procedure which made use of scales to measure water volumes in each reservoir.

After some introduction to pipe networks and mechanics of pipe flow from the organizers, the teams commenced with the one hour challenge of constructing their model networks. After much trial and error, as well as wet clothes and dropped buckets, teams were given a final opportunity to prime their systems with exactly 3 liters of water and ready themselves for judging. While the team of expert judges were making their way around the room, students had the opportunity to tour the civil engineering laboratory, learning more about Civil Engineering as well as the research currently being undertaken at UCT. As an additional challenge for the day, students were also tasked with building an egg protection device that would keep an egg safe from impact after freefall. They were also asked to rate their confidence in their design by choosing a height from which they believed their device would be successful, when dropped. After a very messy testing session – the design of DF Malan High School was determined the best device to safely protect an egg after safely delivering their payload from a colossal height of 5.5m.
After a lunch break SAICE Branch Representative and Professional Engineer, Geoff du Toit spoke on the increasing need of young engineers in South Africa. Immediately following this, the results and prizes were presented to the top three teams as well as some well-deserved spirit prizes. We are proud to wish our victors - on their first appearance at the competition - Swartland High School, every success as they represent the Western Cape at the 2016 National Competition, and hope they can improve on their brilliant score of 79 penalty points. Congratulations should also go to both of Brackenfell High School’s teams who placed 2nd and 3rd. On behalf of the SAICE Western Cape branch committee, we thank each and every school for their participation and wish all the students well for their future.

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.

Marshmallow elevation challenge

Action from the game arena

Podium teams - 1st 2nd 3rd

SAICE WC judges