Take the Fluor Engineering Challenge!

Volleyball Machine—Congratulations to the 2019 Fluor Challenge Drawing Winners and High Scorers!

More than 4,300 students from 10 countries participated in the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge—our fifth anniversary of this annual event. Challenged to create a volleyball machine consisting of two devices, separated by a paper net, which could launch and return a ping pong ball, students brainstormed and built innovative solutions out of simple materials like cups, rubber bands, paper, tape, and craft sticks. Striving to minimize the materials used and maximize the number of successful back-and-forth volleys required iterative problem solving and persistence and led to some truly creative solutions. All eligible team entries were placed into random prize drawings based on geographic location. Congratulations to the twenty winning teams listed in Table 1 whose names were drawn from the eligible pools! Each of these teams earned $1,000 USD from Fluor for their school, organization, or afterschool program. Team School / Program Houston, TX MKG 6Enrichment St. Laurence Catholic School Greenville, SC Candy Gods Summit Drive Elementary Orange County, CA David Samueli Academy Calgary, Alberta Guide Group 3 Cybermentor – Pathfinder STEM Day United States (including Puerto Rico) Team Fluff Wedgwood Elementary School Sra Batista – Malia, Lola & Lalaih Viejo Elementary IBA Tanks Unioto Elementary Science Experts Jonesboro Visual & Performing Art Magnet Unbeatables Bess Campbell Elementary Caesar Dressing Lovers The Moriah School CF & TR Slavens K-8 School We Don't Know What We Are Doing Horton Middle School Team Team Arizona Agribusiness ad Equine Center Rosie Gar-bage III John Curtis Christian School Team DEAW Halifax Elementary The Ballers Wayne High School International Taylor & Olivia Team Goomeri State School Super N John De Graff Elementary School Team #craftycandygirls Cloverdale Traditional — SD 61 Cupaccino Chinook Council Scouts Table 1. Random drawing winners of the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Figure 1. A few of the teams who submitted Volleyball Machine solutions for the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Top Scores for the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge

The Fluor Challenge is open to students in grades K-12. The top 10 scores, overall, for the 2019 Fluor Challenge are shown in Table 2. All scores are validated by Science Buddies staff based on submission photos and the Challenge rules. Regardless of score, all entries that met the geographic requirements were entered in the random drawings.

"The best thing about the Volleyball challenge was that it gave us a realistic look at what engineers have to face from the actual building to deciding between costs and value to teamwork. We learned a lot."

(Team Spike, St Clare School)

2019 Fluor Challenge Scores by Age

Students entering the Fluor Challenge work in teams of up to four students. To recognize the hard work students did creating and testing their solutions and to give students a better sense of how their solutions and scores compare to other students of similar age, the tables and graphs below show the top scores and score distribution for submissions from ages 6-10, 11-14, and 15-18. (Note: The age used for each team is the average age of all members on the team.)

"Our favorite part about this challenge was the building and trying to work together and learning from our mistakes."

(Junior Rainbow Magic Keepers, Rio Vista Elementary)

"Our favorite part, was having the satisfaction of having something we built work and work well. After, going through many steps of trial and error, and even using different designs to optimize the affect of our machine, it was pleasing to see that we could shoot the ball over the net many times."

(Team Epic Gamers, Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School)

"Our favorite part of the 2019 Flour Engineering Challenge was when our machine finally worked. We tried multiple different designs and strategies, but it proved to be much harder than we originally thought. When we finally got a good volley going, we were extremely excited. Every time we beat our top score we'd jump around and cheer."

(Team Beta, Governor's Career and Technical Academy for Engineering Study)

Figure 2. Some of the teams who submitted Volleyball Machine solutions for the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Students Embrace the Challenge

Students who entered the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge had the chance to explore, firsthand, what it means to be an engineer and to collaborate with others to solve a problem and improve a solution. Here are a few examples of what students (and their teachers) told us about their experience doing this year's Volleyball Machine Challenge:

Continue to Challenge Yourself

Even though the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge is over, students can still try their hands at the Volleyball Machine Challenge engineering activity! Simply follow the online instructions to gather materials, design, build, and test your version of a volleyball machine.

If you are looking for even more fun engineering challenges, check out the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 challenges and come back early next year to find out about the 2020 Fluor Engineering Challenge!

If you have questions about the Fluor Challenge, please email us at fluorchallenge@sciencebuddies.org.

Meet the Team of Fluor Engineers who Created the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Fluor employees who came up with this year's challenge include engineers (from left to right) Michael Bower, Tina Tajalli, Mark Thies, and Rafael Villegas.

Fluor holds a Friendly Competition between its engineers every year. The winning team then gets the honor of devising the company challenge for the next year.

Michael Bower, Tina Tajalli, Mark Thies, and Rafael Villegas, four engineers from Fluor's Southern California USA office, are the inspiration behind the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge. When they sat down to design the challenge, Michael, Tina, Mark, and Rafael wanted to pay tribute to the local beach culture. What they developed is an engineering challenge based on beach volleyball. In the challenge, two devices keep a ping pong ball (representing a volleyball) in play, going back and forth over a paper net. The result is a fun and sometimes wacky engineering challenge!

Although they come from different engineering backgrounds and have different jobs, Michael, Tina, Mark, and Rafael (along with many other engineers at Fluor) work together on big projects. It takes the combination of their different skills (along with those of other engineers at Fluor) to design and build complex systems like oil refineries and power plants. The ability to work well as a team helped them come up with the Volleyball Machine Challenge! Students can read more about Michael, Tina, Mark, and Rafael's jobs, hobbies, and what got them interested in engineering and then use this special career worksheet to explore the rich world of engineering.

Ball Launcher—Congratulations to the 2018 Fluor Challenge Drawing Winners and High Scorers!

More than 3,800 students from 10 countries participated in the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge. Challenged to create a ball launcher and receiver using everyday materials (like cups, pencils, ruler, tape, rubber bands, and paper), students devised and tested innovative solutions and launcher designs. After successfully creating a simple machine to launch a small ball made from aluminum foil, many students continued to test and modify their designs to try for successful catches with even greater launch distances. More than 1,390 teams submitted entries for the 2018 Fluor Challenge. All eligible team entries were placed into random prize drawings based on geographic location. Congratulations to the ten winning teams listed in Table 1 whose names were drawn from the eligible pools! Each of these teams earned $1,000 USD from Fluor for their school, organization, or afterschool program. Team School / Program Houston, TX Third Ward Kempner High School Greenville, SC Newton's 4 Launchers Monarch Elementary School Orange County, CA Team Hi Joseph Perry Elementary School Calgary, Alberta The Hamsters Chinook Council Scouts United States (including Puerto Rico) The Long Boomers LaGrange Elementary Survivors Jemison Intermediate School Survivors Rio Vista Elementary International Catapult Supernova Philippine Christian School of Tomorrow Space Potatoes Glenwood Elementary Super Cats Academie de la Capitale Table 1. Random drawing winners of the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Figure 1. A few of the teams who submitted Ball Launcher solutions for the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Top Scores for the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge

The Fluor Challenge is open to students in grades K-12. The top 10 scores, overall, for the 2018 Fluor Challenge are shown in Table 2. All scores are validated by Science Buddies staff based on submission photos, the Challenge rules, and follow-up with teams, as necessary. Regardless of score, all entries that met the geographic requirements were entered in the random drawings.

"My favorite part was the teamwork part, because I got to work with other smart minds to put a good working launcher together. The ideas we came up with to create a working launcher were great!"
(Team KWK)

2018 Fluor Challenge Scores by Age

Students entering the Fluor Challenge work in teams of up to four students. To recognize the hard work students did creating and testing their solutions and to give students a better sense of how their solutions and scores compare to other students of similar age, the tables and graphs below show the top scores and score distribution for submissions from ages 6-10, 11-14, and 15-18. (Note: The age used for each team is the average age of all members on the team.)

"The kids absolutely loved the challenge of discovering ways to not only launch further, but how to make their launches more accurate. As a teacher, I loved how each team had to discover what items to use and perform multiple trials to be successful."
(Teacher, Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School)

"My favorite part of the challenge was building and engineering the device. Trial and error was really fun because we got to improve our machine until we achieved our goal."
(Team The Juniors, Coppell Middle School East)

"It was fun to problem solve and find a way to make the ball go as far as possible with using the least amount of points. We also enjoyed building the launcher and testing."
(Team Silicon, Mauldin High School)

Figure 2. Some of the teams who submitted Ball Launcher solutions for the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Students Embrace the Challenge

Students who entered the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge had the chance to explore, firsthand, what it means to be an engineer and to collaborate with others to solve a problem and improve a solution. Here are a few examples of what students (and their teachers) told us about their experience doing this year's Ball Launcher challenge:

For additional information, quotes, and images from the 2018 Fluor Challenge, see Fourth Annual Fluor Challenge Celebrates Engineering.

Continue to Challenge Yourself

Even though the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge is over, students can still try their hands at the Ball Launcher engineering activity! Simply follow the online instructions to gather materials, design, build, and test your version of a ball launcher and catcher.

If you are looking for even more fun engineering challenges, check out the 2015, 2016, and 2017 challenges and come back early next year to find out about the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge!

If you have questions about the Fluor Challenge, please email us at fluorchallenge@sciencebuddies.org.

Meet the Team of Fluor Engineers who Created the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Fluor employees who came up with this year's challenge include process engineers Temitope Jabaru (left), Linh Nguyen (middle) and Tom Wooley (right).

Fluor holds a Friendly Competition between its engineers every year. The winning team then gets the honor of devising the company challenge for the next year.

Tom Wooley, Linh Nguyen, and Temitope Jabaru, three engineers from Fluor's Houston USA office, are the inspiration behind the 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge. When they sat down to design the challenge, Tom, Linh, and Temitope wanted to pay tribute to Houston's recent history as the location of the 2017 NFL Super Bowl Championship. What they developed is an engineering challenge based on American football. In the challenge, the ball launcher represents the quarterback (the player that throws the ball), and the ball catcher represents the receiver (the player that catches the ball). The result is a fun engineering challenge!

Do you know what process engineers like Tom, Linh, and Temitope do? According to Linh, process engineers are the "architects" of a refinery or plant. "Process engineers determine the design of the plant by figuring out how the plant needs to work in order to take a starting material and transform it into the desired end product," explains Linh. Linh says that process engineers are responsible for determining what equipment is needed, what 'size' everything needs to be, and how the pieces will all fit together. "The design that process engineers develop forms the 'blueprints' (drawings and specification sheets) of the plant," explains Linh. Using the blueprints they create for a project, process engineers then work with other disciplines (like Mechanical, Piping, Control Systems, Electrical, and Construction) to complete the project. According to Linh, collaborating with other teams is how process engineers "bring their design to life and build a successful plant!"

To become process engineers, Tom, Linh, and Temitope all trained as chemical engineers. Despite having different interests and hobbies, they share a love of math and chemistry that led them to their engineering careers at Fluor. Students can read more about Tom, Linh, and Temitope and then use this special career worksheet to explore the rich world of engineering careers.

Follow the Flow Challenge—Congratulations to the Drawing Winners and High Scorers!

Over 3000 students from 11 countries participated in the 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge. Starting with a few simple materials (cups, aluminum foil, tape, and popsicle sticks) students came up with creative ways to build a water flow system to move beads through terraced layers. A small sampling of the hundreds of entries can be seen in Figure 1. We were impressed with the range of solutions students came up with, as well as the innovative spirit and 'can-do' attitude demonstrated by teams around the world! All eligible team entries were placed into random prize drawings based on their geographic location. Congratulations to the ten winning teams listed in Table 1 whose names were drawn from the eligible pools! Each of these teams earned $1,000 USD from Fluor for their school or afterschool program. Team School / Program Houston, TX Engineering Robotics Southwest Glen Mission Greenville, SC The KLT Waterworks Sevier Middle School Orange County, CA Outlawed Kennedy High School Calgary, Alberta The Wall Chinook Council Scouts United States (including Puerto Rico) Raindrop Los Alisos Intermediate The Waterworks YBH of Passaic Galaxy Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva International Girls Rule Engineering Club École Victoria-Albert School TerraSys De La Salle Santiago Zobel School Pealed Potatoes Wisdom College Table 1. Drawing winners of the 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Figure 1. A few examples of water flow solutions built during the 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge.

Continue to Challenge Yourself

Even though the 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge is over, students can still try their hands at the Follow the Flow engineering activity! Simply follow the online instructions to gather materials, design, build, and test your version of a terraced water flow system.

If you are looking for even more fun engineering challenges, check out the 2015, 2016, and 2018 challenges and come back early next year to find out about the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge!

Meet the Team of Fluor Engineers Who Came Up With the 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Fluor employees who came up with this year's challenge include structural engineers Christopher Reybuenan (left) and Benson Angeles (right), & civil engineer Leann Ababon-Sanggalang.

It is Fluor's tradition to hold an internal Friendly Competition between its engineers every year. The winning team gets bragging rights, ownership of the official trophy for the year, and the honor of devising the next challenge. When Team Wabu, pictured, from Fluor's Manilla office in the Philippines won, they knew what they wanted to do next:

"The team came up with an idea [to] showcase something related to the abundant Filipino heritage, hence, the Banaue Rice Terraces, a man-made, historical structure that the Philippines is very proud of. With this challenge, the team hopes that it can stir up the minds of fellow engineers to come up with their best designs and at the same time have fun."

– Leann, Benson, and Christopher, members of Team Wabu

With the help of three other colleagues from the Manilla office, the engineers on Team Wabu spent many hours perfecting the challenge details. Team Wabu found that there was one major similarity between their everyday engineering jobs, winning the Friendly Competition, and designing the next one—engineering works best as a team effort! The result of their team effort was a rousing competition between fellow Fluor engineers. Now it is your turn to gather your team, collaborate, and have fun!

Marble Machine Challenge—Check Out the Drawing Winners and High Scorers!

The 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge, held February 11 – March 11, 2016, asked students to design marble machines capable of sorting a mixture of 6 mm and 12 mm spheres into separate cups. With over 600 entries worked on by more than 1700 students, the range of solutions was enormous! We were impressed by the ingenuity and perseverance students demonstrated, and enjoyed seeing each and every entry. Figure 1 shows just a small sample of the hundreds of marble sorting machines students created. All eligible team entries were placed into random prize drawings based on their geographic location. Congratulations to the ten winning teams listed in Table 1 whose names were drawn from the eligible pools! Each of these teams earned $1,000 USD from Fluor for their school or afterschool program. Team School / Program Houston, TX The Dragons Attack Poverty in Richmond, TX Greenville, SC MCK Mauldin High School in Greenville, SC Orange County, CA Peanut Butter and Jelly Mission Basilica in San Juan Capistrano, CA Calgary, Alberta The Happy Stallions Notre Dame High School in Calgary, Canada United States (including Puerto Rico) Legends Los Alisos Intermediate in Mission Viejo, CA The Undecided Coppell Middle School North in Coppell, TX Indian Creek A Team Indian Creek High School in Wintersville, OH International Bobbington Traditional Learning Academy in Delta, BC, Canada The Cercons TBD Vicfia Fluor Team TMS School in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada Table 1. Drawing winners of the 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge

Figure 1. A few examples of the marble sorting machines built during the 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge.

Continue to Challenge Yourself

Even though the 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge is over, the Marble Machine Challenge remains available for all students to try their hands at. Simply follow the online instructions to gather materials, design, build and test your version of a marble sorting machine. Curious about how your machine stacks up to entries from the 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge? Figure 2 shows the distribution of scores across all entries received. The highest peak in the graph corresponds to the 17% of entries that scored less than 500 points. In general, most entries scored 4580 points or less. The top ten highest scores are listed in Table 2. No matter what your score, a marble machine that is built of the limited materials allowed and can successfully sort even some of the spheres is something to be proud of! If you are looking for even more fun engineering challenges, check out the 2015, 2017, and 2018 challenges and come back early next year to find out about the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge! Figure 2. 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge score distribution.

Top Marble Machine Scores Team Age(s) Score Christopher's Clemson Sorters 16 9880 ABET 18 9785 thebom.com 13 9715 Lejit Pandaz 15-17 9655 Knukelés 13-14 9645 Angelica Awesomeness 13 9590 The Rebels 12-14 9530 DanRich Duo 15 9515 CNT 13 9495 Rutabaga 15 9470 Orange Extreme 9-11 9460 Table 2. 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge top scores.

Balloon-Powered Car Challenge—Check out the Winners and High Scorers!

Designed to help students experience how real-life engineers design solutions and to show students first-hand how fun engineering can be, the 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge asked students to design, build, and test their own balloon-powered cars using limited materials. Science Buddies and Fluor were thrilled to see the huge range of creative solutions engineered by K-12 students around the world in response to the challenge. Figure 1 shows a small sampling of the hundreds of balloon-car photos we received. Congratulations to the team from Coppell Middle School East in Coppell, Texas, whose team entry won the random drawing for the 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge and earned $1,500 USD from Flour for their school! Fluor offered additional prizes in each of four locations (Canada, Orange County, Houston, and Greenville). More information about those winners and photos of their balloon-cars can be seen here.

Figure 1. 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge balloon-car samples.

Continue to Challenge Yourself

Even though the 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge is over, the Balloon-Powered Car Challenge remains available for all students to try their hands at. Simply follow the online instructions to gather materials, design, build and test your version of a balloon-powered car. Curious about how your car stacks up to entries from the 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge? Figure 2 shows the distribution of scores across all entries received. The highest peak in the graph corresponds to the 20% of entries which scored between 4001 and 5000 points. In general, most entries (61% to be exact) scored 6000 or less points. The top ten highest scores are listed in Table 1. No matter what your score, a balloon car that can successfully roll along is worth a pat on the back! Figure 2. 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge score distribution.

Top Ten Balloon-Car Scores Team Name Student Age(s) Score TESLA 2015 14 34,000 N/A 14-16 19,420 Anonymous 14 17,340 GTR 12-13 15,500 High Speed 15-16 13,340 David Crockett Middle School 11-14 12,290 Rollin' 15 11,190 Naomi 11 10,460 The Schilling Shuttle 11 10,420 The Jensen Jalopy 11 10,090 Table 1. 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge top ten scores.

If you are looking for even more fun engineering challenges, check out the 2016, 2017, and 2018 challenges and come back early next year to find out about the 2019 Fluor Engineering Challenge!

How the Annual Fluor Engineering Challenge Started

Fluor engineers design and build some of the world's toughest projects, ranging from Shell's Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) Quest project to the CALTRANS San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Construction project. For a bit of company fun and friendly competition, Fluor engineers challenge each other every year in a global, company-wide engineering competition. Teams of Fluor engineers have been going head to head in yearly competitions for decades, and each year more than 500 engineers around the world participate in the company challenge.

In 2015 Fluor decided to bring the spirit of their yearly employee competition to students. As part of their celebration of Engineers Week, Fluor launched the first annual student-centered Fluor Engineering Challenge to inspire students K-12 to get hands-on with a fun engineering activity during Engineers Week (February 22-28, 2015). With the help of Science Buddies, Fluor's "Moving on the Moon" internal engineering challenge was transformed into an engaging and student-friendly hands-on engineering project that could be easily introduced in a classroom or afterschool program—or done at home. With cash prizes and bragging rights on the line, more than 350 teams stepped up to the plate from around the world. What came next was amazing to watch: a parade of engineering solutions, innovation, and diverse thinking from students focused on creating their own balloon-powered cars with limited materials. Teachers and students alike wrote in to tell us how much fun they had and how eager they were for more challenges:

Ongoing Vision for the Fluor Engineering Challenge

The annual Fluor Engineering Challenge is designed to help students experience how real-life engineers design solutions and to show students first-hand how fun engineering can be. Every year, in partnership with Science Buddies, Fluor transforms one of its own internal employee engineering challenges into a student-centric challenge. The challenge is launched in time for Engineers Week so that teachers and afterschool organizations can use the challenge with their students. The challenge is open to all students around the globe with prizes awarded in a more limited geography. At the end of the approximately four week challenge window the winners and top-scorers are announced and prizes are distributed. The challenge itself lives on though! Previous challenges can be accessed at any time through the Science Buddies website. Individual students and groups are invited to try the previous challenges any time they want—students can measure how their solution stacks up to others students' by calculating their own score and comparing it to that of teams who competed during the challenge window. We invite everyone to try their hand at these Fluor Engineering Challenges:

• 2018 Fluor Engineering Challenge: Ball Launcher
• 2017 Fluor Engineering Challenge: Follow the Flow
• 2016 Fluor Engineering Challenge: Marble Machine
• 2015 Fluor Engineering Challenge: Balloon-Powered Car