As part of efforts to foster education, create awareness and encouragethe youth of South Africa to follow a career as a science or civil engineering professional, Marley Pipe Systems will once again sponsor the SAICE-WRC Water Competition,known as AQUALIBRIUM.
Thisnational water competition, which is now in its 10th year, comprises individual regional competitions which ultimately culminatein a showdown where the winning teams gather in Johannesburg tobattle it out for the grand prize. This year, the finals will be held at the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre on 16 August 2013. In order to give students an idea of what it takes to be a civil engineer or related professional, students from each team are tasked to design and construct a model water distribution network. The teams are given unique ‘design kits’ which are purpose-made for the competition, containing all the ‘pipes’ and ‘connections’ that the students will need to build a pipeline capable of distributing three litres of water equally between three points on a given grid. As part of its commitment to this valuable project, Marley Pipe Systems sponsored in excess of R50 000 to SAICE for the development of30 new and complete kits which will be used by SAICE for the 2013 national finals of the schools competition. These new kits will be produced by trained technicians, and some of the materials imported from Hong Kong for the purpose of making the competition more realistic and easier to run by allowing students to design their networks with more scientific accuracy.Most of these sets will also be distributed to SAICE branches for use in schools outreach and future regional competitions.
Marley is proud to be associated with this competition and this investment signifies its support for SAICE to help them carry on their good work with these kinds of projects which aim to make a real difference through various education initiatives throughout the country for the benefit of our country’s future water infrastructure and quality of life.
Marie Ashpole, Outreach Officer for SAICE, emphasised the importance of industry support to make this valuable project happen. “Without industry, this competition would not be possible – it’s fantastic to have companies such as Marley on board to help get our message across as a united industry and to encourage the youth to get into the civil engineering profession and related industries.” According to Kobus van Zyl, Associate Professor of Hydraulic Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at UCT and founder of the SAICE Water Competition, “Marley’s contribution in sponsoring the 2012 National Finals and the new AQUALIBRIUM kits is making a real difference to SAICE’s drive to educate learners and encourage them to go into careers such as civil engineering”.
