2016 Aqualibrium Competition

Description

The goal of the competition is to distribute water equally between three points on a grid using a network of pipes. Teams are judged on how well they can achieve this task after a certain period of testing.

What is the Aqualibrium Competition?

The Aqualibrium competition is a fun way to learn about water supply, what civil engineers do and the importance of protecting our water resources. The aim of the competition is to distribute three litres of water equally between three reservoirs (containers) placed randomly on a grid of 16 points. Participants build a pipe network between a water source and the three reservoirs using pipes of different diameters.

A background picture was produced in 2008 (see our Download Page) for the competition to illustrate the urban water cycle and provide the context within which water is supplied. The competition presents an excellent reference point to discuss the importance of preserving natural water resources and the need to use water sparingly, as well as the application of physics and mathematics to a real-life engineering problem.

While the competition is simple to understand and fun to do, the underlying problem is highly complex: the three small reservoirs can be placed in more than 3 000 combinations, and potentially there are 280 billion possible pipe networks for each one of these combinations. However, this underlying complexity doesn’t make the competition more difficult to participate in – it remains a great deal of fun!