Apr 9 2008 11:59AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

This week Avnet announced the winners from its third annual Avnet Tech Games, an annual competition featuring several multi-disciplinary technology events.

The competition, held April 5, presented more than 150 students from colleges and universities in Arizona with several technology challenges. Among the Avnet Tech Games events are "AMD Build the Fastest Computer," where teams use pre-selected and ordered parts to build the fastest computer and "Design and Build a Digital Device," where students present a technical report on a digital electronic device they designed and built.

The competition has students work both in teams and on their own for the nine events to prepare them for what we all know is a competitive engineering job market. A networking opportunity and career fair at t...Read More

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Apr 3 2008 3:30PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

The Freescale Technology Forum is a little greener this year. Each forum in 2008 has a design challenge accompanying it — and the finalists' prototypes, due May 16, will all be products that can benefit the environment.

Green design is an aspect of engineering possibly best fostered through competition. Driven by the importance of sustainability in future tools and technologies, competitions like the FTF challenge will in large part develop the sustainable systems we'll rely on in the future. And each finalist announced seems, at least to me, promising — the list includes a flexible fuel engine control unit, a gas-saving aut...Read More

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Mar 27 2008 3:20PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

This year's CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2008 (check out DN Contributing Editor Joe Ogando's coverage on dozer innovations from Caterpillar and Deere) was host to the finals of the International Construction Challenge put on by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). The three challenges of the competition focused on the construction industry's positive impact on safe roads, clean water and other quality-of-life issues.

The AEM says the challenge helps recruit construction's future workforce to address an impending shortage of future skilled workers needed to fill over 1 million new jobs in construction by 2012. Thi...Read More

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Mar 24 2008 12:30PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (2) |

The New York City Department of Transportation is holding an international CityRacks design competition for a new bicycle parking system in the City of New York. The competition focuses on both in-building bike parking and sidewalk racks that will hold cycling up as an easy and environmentally friendly transportation option.

New York City currently uses thousands of CityRacks, which are variations of fabricated square steel tube that take up little sidewalk space and don't interfere with the flow of city life. But according to the City, the CityRack has been used for over 10 years and can't continue as an NYC icon to promote cycling as a preferred and convenient means of transportation. The City will use the winner of the sidewalk rack competition as its new bike-parking standard, and Go...Read More

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Mar 20 2008 2:17PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |

When I think RoboCup, autonomous robots kicking soccer balls indoors is the first image that springs to mind. But there's a lot more behind RoboCup than I realized. 

RoboCup aims to use RoboCupSoccer to create a fully autonomous team of humanoid robots that can beat the human World Cup champion soccer team by 2050. But using the technologies originally developed for this challenge to essentially contribute to society is the main goal behind RoboCup. The organization developed RoboCup-Rescue to use RoboCup technologies in assisting search-and-rescue teams during large-scale disasters. RoboCup cites the Great Hanshi-Awaji earthquake in Kobe City, Japan as the "t...Read More

Mar 20 2008 11:39AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |

Our Crisis in Engineering Education coverage series, addressing the state of engineering education today, focuses on educational alternatives and what it takes to get ahead in an increasingly demanding engineering workplace. One way engineering students can prepare for their future careers is by participating in a design engineering competition or contest. These challenges serve as real-world experiences for competitors, encouraging the practice of necessary workplace skills including ingenuity, inventiveness, time management and teamwork.

That said, welcome to Design News' Design Engineering Competitions blog! Here you'll find the latest news on engineering competitions and challenges happening all over the globe. Check back frequently for daily updates on upcoming events, competition winners and ev...Read More

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