Simple Concepts Contest Winners Announced
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January 17, 2014
Petroleum engineering is a complicated, technical subject that requires engineers to solve geological challenges 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface. UT PGE created the Simple Concepts Contest to showcase the discipline in a non-technical manner to middle-school and high-school students in order to attract them to studying petroleum engineering. The department recently hosted its second annual contest, which produced unique and creative winning projects.
The competition requires participants to create a simple demonstration of a physical concept relevant to any aspect of flow through subsurface and mechanics of rocks and soils. Ultimately, the goal of the Simple Concepts Contest is to communicate fundamental scientific concepts to non-scientific or specialist audiences.
Participants entered for a chance to win prizes—up to $750. The winner, graduate student Mahmood Shakiba, was recognized for his submission titled, “Napkin Sweep Efficiency.”
Shakiba said his project idea was inspired while simply making coffee.
“I accidentally spilled it on a pack of napkins on the counter,” he said. “I noticed that the diffusion of coffee into the napkins could be a good example of injecting water into layers of a reservoir. Based on the patterns of the wet napkins, I could explain vertical and areal sweep efficiencies due to water flooding.”
The winning submission is showcased each spring at Explore UT, which is typically popular with school-aged children. Shakiba said he hopes these younger attendees gain a better understanding of petroleum engineering processes through his project.
“The contest gives me a great opportunity to improve my communication skills and to test my knowledge by explaining [these concepts] in a simple way,” said Shakiba. “I hope my project will help the younger students visualize the operations and processes that we deal with in petroleum engineering.”
Students Mahdi Haddad and Shaina Kelly also won the second and third place prizes for their projects, “Paper Fish” and “Design Your Edible Petroleum Reservoir.”
Those who placed first, second and third received $750, $500, and $250 in prize winnings, while the three teams who received an honorable mention were awarded $50 Amazon gift cards.
