Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Biological Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Brian Haggard

Committee Member

Brian Haggard

Second Committee Member

Terry Howell

Third Committee Member

Matthew McVey

Abstract

This honors thesis describes the engineering design process for the first ASABE Fountain Wars submission by a student team at the University of Arkansas in over a decade. Fountain Wars has a technical and aesthetic task, and the focus of this thesis is the design of the technical task. In 2025, this task was the “shoot out.” The objective was to get objects from a small pool into two 5-gallon buckets 10-15 feet away. The power for initiating the launch had to be provided by the pump. The objects were required to start at the surface of the water.

The team began preparing in February for the July competition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The initial design idea we had was to build a water-powered trebuchet to launch objects. After several other ideas, we decided to complete the technical task by launching ping pong balls directly with a stream of water from a pump. The final design surrounded a table with a round plexiglass surface. A half-pipe channel lined the edge of the table to provide a raised water surface for the ping pong balls. One pump was used to create current in the channel and another pump was used to launch the balls.

We used Bernoulli’s equation for incompressible flow, Darcy’s formula, and the Colebrook equation to analyze the theoretical exit velocity at the nozzle. We then took flow measurements from the built system to develop a pump curve. There were several errors and approximations involved in the calculations, but the completed design functioned as expected.

In order to compete, we had to deconstruct the fountain and pack it up into suitcases to fly to Toronto. On competition day, we had a limited time to put it all back together and then had one shot at completing each task.

Keywords

Fountain Wars, ASABE, Hydraulics, Design Competition

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