Any participant must be a Student Member of ASME who is enrolled as an undergraduate in a baccalaureate or associate engineering/engineering technology degree program at any time during the 2009-10 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. The number of teams allowed from each Student Section may be restricted, due to venue size limitations, at the SPDC by the host school.

To find the date and time for your local 2010 Spring Student Professional Development Conference (SPDC) go to the Student Professional Development Conferences website. You will be able to register for the competitions on the individual conference websites as the conference dates approach. 

ASME Student Members may ask the Student Design Competition 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 19, 2010.  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, 2010.  Procedures for teams outside of those geographic areas where an SPDC is hosted will follow video submission procedures laid out the webpage "Special Arrangements for Students Outside North America."  Decisions made by judging committees at local Student Professional Development Conference or for international (video) submission are absolutely final.

The 2010 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 November 2010 in Vancouver, BC. At the IMECE competition, the order in which teams will compete will be determined by lot.

In order to qualify for the travel allowances for the 2010 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.