The first student team from UT's Biosystems Engineering & Environmental Science department to participate in the Fountain Wars Competition wowed the crowd at the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) annual convention in Ottawa, Canada. The team won second prize in the overall competition ($300) and placed first for aesthetics ($200). The team consisted of Chris Butler, Adam Byard, Tammy Cheung, Aaron Crenshaw, and Jill Kovalchik, and was advised by Dr. John Tyner.Fountain Wars is a hands-on, real-time design challenge in which students design and model the performance of their fountain before the competition, but build and test the actual fountain in front of judges in a timed event.
The 2004 technical tasks included launching a tennis ball the greatest horizontal distance using only the power of water, and suspending a beach ball with a jet of water as high as possible without using solid supports. The competition also included the submission of a technical report, and a formal presentation given to the society during the convention. Awards are based on separate scores of the written design, oral presentation, construction, technical tests, and aesthetics.
The Fountain Wars contest is part of the Gunlogson Environmental Student Design Competition, supporting engineering excellence in the design of environmental systems. Complete information on the contest is available at
http://biosystems.okstate.edu/Gunlogson/Fountains2004.htm
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