A&M-KINGSVILLE STUDENTS ACE ENGINEERING CONTEST

(KINGSVILLE, April 9, 1996) -- Texas A&M University-Kingsville senior mechanical engineering students Barrett Mayes and Brian Stobaugh won first place in the design contest held recently at the Region X conference of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in Beaumont. The pair won over teams from schools including Texas A&M University in College Station and the University of Houston.

Mayes, of Houston, and Stobaugh, a native of Round Rock, advance to the national competition to be held during November in Atlanta. They will compete against winners from the 11 other regions of ASME in North America. Region X includes Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mexico.

This year's design problem was to transfer 250 milliliters (ml) of water over a distance of 2 meters from one 12-ounce foam cup to another. The source cup had 300 ml of water in it. Scoring was based on the amount of water in the destination cup and the source cup.

Mayes, who is from Houston, and Stobaugh, a native of Round Rock, used a gear pump connected to a tube that had been raised off the bottom of the cup to the height required to extract 250 ml of the water.

Twenty-four students from A&M-Kingsville attended the ASME conference, gaining it an award for the highest percentage of ASME members in attendance for the second straight year. A second design team consisted of Joe Martinez of Rio Hondo, Rene Garcia of Weslaco, Juan Mendiola of Corpus Christi, Albert Luis of McAllen and Juan Castillo of LaPryor. Noel McKim of Corpus Christi participated in the Old Guard oral competition and Diana Hernandez competed in the Old Guard Poster event.

Mary Sherwood
T.A.M.U.K
04/09/96