Any participant must be a Student Member of ASME who is enrolled as an undergraduate in a baccalaureate or associate engineering degree program at any time during the 2007-08 academic year.  All Contestants agree to abide by the Engineering Code of Ethics, with particular attention to Canons #2 and #7.

The contest is open to individuals but teams of two to four members are encouraged. No team may have more than four members. An individual may participate on only one team. Each team may only have one entry. There is no restriction on the number of teams allowed from each Student Section.

To find the date and time for your local 2008 Spring Student Conference go to the Student Professional Development Conferences website. You will be able to register for the competitions on the individual conference websites. 

ASME Student Members may ask the Student Design Contest Committee clarifying questions about the rules or procedures.  To do this students must go to the “Members Only” pages, and will need their student ASME number for identification purposes.   All questions and their associated answers will be posted on the internet and will be available for anyone to review, member or not.  Please review the Questions & Answers pages before posting a new question to make sure your question is not already answered.

Collected Questions and Answers will be posted on the internet once per week, probably early in the week.

To avoid unanticipated changes in the contest prompted by last-minute questions, all questions must be postmarked on or before Friday, February 15, 2008.  Uncertainties teams might face after that time will be settled by the judges at the local Student Professional Development Conference, and proper penalties, including disqualification, will be applied if necessary.

Each local Student Professional Development Conference is entitled to select one team to enter the final international competition. The local Conference winner must meet all of the problem statement and Question & Answer bulletin requirements. All local Student Professional Development Conference winners must be established on or before June 30, 2008 for schools within the US, Canada or Mexico.  Procedures for teams outside of those geographic areas (formerly in “Region XIII”) will follow video submission procedures laid out on a web page accessible from the contest main menu.  Decisions made by judging committees at local Student Professional Development Conference or for international (video) submission are absolutely final.

The 2008 ASME Student Professional Development Conference winners and the international submission winners will compete at ASME's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE or "The Congress") held in Boston, MA on October 31 - November 6, 2008. At the IMECE contest the order in which teams will compete will be determined by lot.

In order to qualify for the travel allowances for the 2008 ASME Student Professional Development Conference and international submission winning teams, all team members must still be Student Members in good standing or, if graduated, must have upgraded to Associate Member and be in good standing at the time of the IMECE.

ASME Student Members who do not have a student section at their school may compete as "At Large" members, but they must win in one local Student Professional Development Conference or, if appropriate, in the international (video) submission contest in order to reach the national competition.

NOTE: Any earlier deadlines for entry into a competition and/or submittal of entry information requested by a local Student Professional Development Conference organizer and publicized to all potentially affected student sections take precedence over any deadlines or submittal information requirements/deadlines published in these rules.