Scholarships in the form of cash awards will be presented to students with the top designs. Hydro Aluminum North America once again will be the sole sponsor for the cash awards, expect to total nearly $10,000.
The aim of the competition is to promote the understanding and use of extruded aluminum profiles, as well as to highlight innovations and recognize excellence in aluminum extrusion design. Students studying design and engineering at universities, colleges, technical schools and high schools around the world are invited to participate. The ET Foundation will accept entries for the 2011 International Aluminum Extrusion Student Design Competition through April 13, 2011. Entry in the competition is free, and judging will take place following the entry deadline.
“The Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition is a great tool to help students studying engineering, design and related fields learn about the countless material and process advantages of aluminum extrusions,” said Lynn Brown, vice president of sales & marketing for Hydro. “Since Hydro began its sponsorship of the scholarship awards in 2004, we have been consistently impressed with the ingenuity evident in the entries.”
Winning entries will be those that demonstrate the benefits of extruded aluminum—whether by inventing a new product or improving an existing one—by achieving the following objectives: ease of fabrication and assembly, cost-effectiveness, innovation, new application capability, customization, close tolerances, improvement of extrusion processes, and likelihood of market success. Scholarships will be presented as cash awards to the top student designs, including $3,000 for First Place, $2,000 for Second Place, and $1,000 for Third Place.
Students also may compete for the Hydro Sustainable Design Scholarship Award of $2,500. The Sustainable Design award was established by Hydro to foster innovative solutions to societal and/or environmental issues. The Sustainable Design Scholarship Award is presented to the student whose design best addresses those concerns, in addition to meeting the four basic ET Foundation Design Competition criteria of creativity, practicality, product/process advantage, and market impact/potential. Past Sustainable Design winning entries have included a water purification system, a modular shelter with water collection system, and a fully recyclable laptop computer.
Helpful Design Resources at ETFdesign.org
More information on the 2011 Aluminum Extrusion Student Design Competition—including the Call for Entries complete with the official entry form, as well as a variety of tools and resources—is available on the ET Foundation’s Design Competition website at www.ETFdesign.org. From an overview of the aluminum extrusion process and choosing the right aluminum alloy, to design considerations and useful publications, the website contains a wealth of information and resources to help students with the design process. Additionally, instructors and students alike can download the free presentation “Designing to the Limits of Your Imagination” providing details on the material and design advantages of extruded aluminum, application examples, and more.
The International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition is held annually for students and periodically for professionals. The next professional competition is planned to coincide with the premier technical conference for the global aluminum extrusion industry, ET ’12—the Tenth International Aluminum Extrusion Technology Seminar. ET ’12 is scheduled for May 15-18, 2012 in Miami, Florida, USA. For more information, visit www.ET12.org.
The Extrusion Technology for Aluminum Profiles Foundation has been established for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes to develop, promote, provide, and fund education and research related to aluminum extrusion processes and technologies. For more information, contact the ET Foundation mail@etfoundation.org or visit www.etfoundation.org.
About Hydro
Hydro Aluminum North America is a unit of Norsk Hydro, a global supplier of aluminum and aluminum products. Based in Norway, the company employs 23,000 people in 40 countries and has activities on all continents. Hydro is the world’s third-largest aluminum supplier, the largest single manufacturer of primary metal and extruded aluminum products in Europe, and a leader in delivering innovative light metal solutions to the automotive and building industries worldwide.
In North America, Hydro provides aluminum solutions including supply sourcing, extrusion, finishing, and fabrication of components, as well as engineering and contract manufacturing services, for a variety of industries.
http://www.hydro.com/northamerica/
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