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 present academic year. All Competitors agree to abide by the Engineering Code of Ethics, with particular attention to Canons #2 and #7.
The competition is open to individuals but teams of two to four members are encouraged. There is no limit to the number of people on a team. 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 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 periodically, every 7-10 business days.
To avoid unanticipated changes in the competition prompted by last-minute questions, all questions must be postmarked on or before February 18. 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 July 30th. Procedures for teams outside of those geographic areas where an SPDC is hosted will follow video submission procedures. Decisions made by judging committees at local Student Professional Development Conference or for international (video) submission are absolutely final.
The ASME Student Professional Development Conference winners and the international submission winners will be funded to compete at ASME's International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE or "The Congress") typically held in November of every year. At the IMECE competition, the order in which teams will compete will be determined by lot. Non-finalist teams will also be eligible to participate in the final competition at IMECE on a first-come, first-serve basis and at their own expense.
In order to qualify for the travel allowances, all team members of the ASME Student Professional Development Conference and international submission winning teams must 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 competition in order to be funded to attend the final competition.
NOTE: Any earlier deadlines for entry into a competition and/or submittal of entry information requested by a local Student Professional Development Conferenceorganizer and publicized to all potentially affected student sections take precedence over any deadlines or submittal information requirements/deadlines published in these rules.