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Engineering Competition 2012 at Rice University

1,250 views · Published 23 February 2012 · 1:46 · Indexed 2 October 2026

Channel: Rice University · 2012 · Education

Sisyphus needed these young engineers working for him. The onerous challenge of moving his boulder up the mountain would have seemed like play.

Using pulleys, levers, chutes, funnels, weights and counterweights, 30 teams of Rice University students spent the afternoon of Feb. 22 scheming to roll their boulders (represented by binder clips) from the ground (table) to the top of the mountain (a cardboard cylinder) in the annual Engineering Week Student Competition at the Grand Hall.

A team of three freshmen -- Michael Lebens of Brown and Seth Davis and Tatiana Narvaez of Hanszen -- who called themselves The First Triumverate won $150 each for first place at the event sponsored in part by the Fluor Corporation, which gives the same challenge to its engineers on the same day at its facilities around the world. The competition is also sponsored by the Rice Global Engineering and Construction Forum and Rice's George R. Brown School of Engineering.

Engineering Competition 2012 at Rice University

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