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Rules and Regulations for Student Design Contest 7

Eligibility for Participation

Design teams must consist of students enrolled in a senior design project or equivalent course in EE , ME , CS, CE, or other interdisciplinary area offered by the university that they attend. A design team must consist of at least two individuals. The contest is tailored to encourage teamwork. However, a design team should not exceed ten students. All team members that contributed to the project must be listed as a team member.

The project must relate to electrical, computer, micro-electronic engineering or computer science. The students must be undergraduates with at least a junior standing. At least one of the design team members must be an IEEE member. An IEEE member number is required register and we will verify it for qualification.

Application and Admission

The application deadline is Saturday April 1, 2007. In order to apply for this contest you must accurately fill all required fields as indicated on the registration page. We will not accept applications later than the date specified. Note that submitting the form on our website does not guarantee you eligibility in our contest. This is an application only.

A committee consisting of faculty and IEEE student chapter members will select which teams we feel should participate in the contest. We will base our decision on project originality, creativeness, practicality and other factors such as to limit the amount of teams from one school that attend, as seen necessary. This admission process will increase the quality of projects, the range of schools, create fairness for all teams that want to register, and vary the project nature. Project selection is based on abstracts only, so be descriptive.

The team's academic advisor or the department head must certify that the team members are matriculated undergraduate students in the university and that the results are their own bona fide work. The advisor can email the RIT IEEE at ieee@mail.rit.edu with their contact information, or send a letter on university letterhead to RIT IEEE. We must receive advisor certification by the payment deadline or we will assume your team ineligible.

Costs/Benefits for Contestants

The contest cost is $50 per team and an additional $20 per team member to participate that must be paid the second Wednesday from admission to the contest. We will not accept payment for any team received after the deadline and will eliminate your team from the contest. Admission costs are non-refundable; therefore please apply only if you plan to have your project presentable and attending. Provide payment in the form of check or money order made out to RIT IEEE Student Chapter. For quick and easy payment using a credit card or bank account, use PayPal.com . Send payment to ieee@mail.rit.edu .

The RIT IEEE student chapter cannot refund transportation, hotel, or other expenses for your trip. However, we recommend that you contact your local IEEE section or school for your funding. We will provide a breakfast, lunch, and refreshments during the contest. We also provide a dinner at the end of the day's events in a local banquet hall. There will be additional door gifts for each contestant for attending.

Project Guidelines

The project should consist of some or all of the following work: theoretical design; appropriate design simulations; working application; a poster and multi-media presentation of the project.

The project must be a typical senior design project for a bachelor's degree. The time span for project completion should be less than one year. The project can be a "proof of concept" project, or a marketable application. The project can be a new project, or an improvement on an existing project (on-going project).

If your project is part of a larger, on-going project for an organization (e.g., Baja car from MiniBaja), then it would be eligible if it created an additional feature or was a major modification (improved design) of an existing feature of the larger project. Your project would still have to relate to electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or micro-electronic engineering in a clear fashion.

Contest Details

The contest event will be an all day "science fair" convention. Design teams are required to give a brief multi-media presentation of their design project. Your team should also set up a science fair booth to promote your project further. A booth is where your team greets judges or participants in a large room with other teams (like a science fair) to freely discuss and demonstrate your project during break periods. Each team will have their own 8' by 3' table, and power outlets to use. Demonstrations of the project can be on-site or on a previously recorded video. You must specify any additional needs at least one week before the registration deadline. We cannot provide advanced measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, etc. We provide LCD projectors and digital camera overheads in the auditorium. Power outlets, an SVGA cable and Ethernet jacks are available everywhere. Wireless internet is also available.

Presentations will be 15 minutes, and then there will be a 5-minute Q & A session. We will enforce this time in order to fit all teams in the schedule, so be sure to pace your presentation. An introduction to the team members (and sponsors if available) is required. Provide detail about task assignments, budget, operation, design issues and calculations, etc. A justification of the design approach and discussion of alternatives may be appropriate. Each team member present must participate in the presentation.

Since live project demonstrations will not be allowed during the presentation, you should include a prerecorded video demonstration of the project. The video must be in a standard AVI or DIVX encoding. It is highly recommended that you mail us your video on CD before the contest date so we may check that it works on our computer. It is your responsibility to provide us with your video demonstration in a timely manner so that it is loaded on our computer before the presentations begin.

Judging Process

The judges will be IEEE Rochester section members and industry sponsors. The judging criterion is based on innovation and creativity, presentation, technical quality, teamwork, and the project demonstration. The number of members working on the project will be taken into account. See the judging page for details.

Banquet and Awards Ceremony

There will be a semi-formal banquet at the closing of the event. After the dinner, we will have a guest speaker and an awards ceremony. All prizes will be divided equally among the team members. The team prizes are as follows:

• First place team prize is $5000
• Second place team prize is $3000
• Third place team prize is $1000

In addition to the cash prizes awarded to the top three teams, the participants of the contest will decide the winners of three additional $500 bonus honorable mention awards. These awards are:

• Most Marketable Project (plus $500)
• Most Innovative Project (plus $500)
• Best Presentation (plus $500)

For tax purposes, prize-winning contestants must report their social security numbers.

Addendum

RIT IEEE reserves the right to use the pictures taken during the contest for its future publicity and advertising purposes only.
RIT IEEE reserves the right to modify or change these rules at any time. Registrants are only bound to the rules at the time of the registration.

 

Last Edited: 01/08/07