Congratulations to all the teams who participated in this year’s contest!
Here’s a link to a video of the contest:
Special thanks to: Christine Gunsaullus, Entech Engineering
50 plastic straws. A 16 oz red solo cup. Paperclips, rubber bands, scissors, and pipe cleaners.
Could you construct a tank out of random office supplies that could hold 8 oz of water for 30 seconds?
Eight teams of four successfully did this at the 5th Annual Tank Building Contest, proudly sponsored by Entech Engineering, at this year’s PA-AWWA Conference.
The competition was fierce, with several teams returning from previous years with important hands-on experience, and knowing they only had 30 minutes to construct their tank.
After construction, water testing moved from the shortest tank to tallest. A student team built the Leaning Water Tower of Pisa (22” high), which quickly crashed and splashed, plus lost an inch in height by failing to include a tank mixer in their design, a new twist in this year’s competition. The Keggers from Keystone Engineering (22”) and Frank the Tank’s team (25.25”) remembered their mixers, but also crashed down. The Entech Leaky Buckets were the first team to pass the fill test, standing proudly at 26.75”. They outpaced tough competition from Buchart Horn’s We Are Tanked (29.5”), which was 28 seconds into the 30 second water test before succumbing to gravity, but still earned a huge roar from the crowd, the Biggest Splash award, and tasty treats for their team.
The last three teams kept the crowd in suspense, with The Pipeline (Capital Region Water) scaling to 30.5” and holding water, then the returning champions Don’t Fall reaching 31.75” and not falling. The tallest tank from Team Awesome (Kyle Quinn of MBA, Dan Goldhahn of IK Stoltzfus, and Kristen Conners and Aaron Griffin of Hazen & Sawyer) maxed out at 35”. Not only did their tank feature three different mixers, but it won the contest, and won their team the $100 grand prize!
Congratulations to all participants for making this event a soaking success.