The Arcadia High School (AHS) Engineering Design and Development team (EDD) recently won 1st place in NASA’s annual JPL Invention Challenge. The final competition titled “Bucket Brigade Contest,” was held on Dec. 5 and challenged the teams to move two gallons of water into a bucket, 16 feet away in 60 seconds. 

The EDD had been competing in this challenge for over 20 years. They received the rules, instructions, and the prompt in September to prepare for it. The competition consisted of two rounds–the regionals and finals. The regionals this year were held in Costa Mesa, and the finals were held in the JPL headquarters in Pasadena. The EDD team this year was disqualified from regionals for their time being “too fast”, at seven seconds, and the judges suspected cheating. However, the EDD worked with the inventor, and fortunately, the EDD submitted proof that they did not cheat and were allowed to enter back into the regionals. Though, they were not placed back in first. 

From regionals to finals, the number of teams decreased from around 40 to 25. In preparation for finals, the team settled on an Archimedes style-screw design.

Senior Richard Feng, the operations lead for EDD, explained their design for the finals. “It was created [out] of four-inch PVC pipes,” Feng said. “There’s a screw in the center, driven by three motors that sit on top, with a shaft running through it that’s driven by the gearbox,” he said. To transfer the water all the way 16 feet, there was a “16 foot pipe going towards the bucket.” The AHS EDD team completed the task in 6.45 seconds, a large margin compared to the 3rd place winner of 9.18 seconds.

“Overall, we had a great design this year,” said Mr. David Trent, EDD’s advisor. 

This competition also showed the use of 3D printing, and how one can use it for multiple purposes and specific applications while being cost effective. The AHS team’s collaboration resulted in the win.

“I’m very proud of our students [and] they worked very hard,” added Mr. Trent. “We had great support from parents and the admin of the school.”