Competition Rules

PARTICIPATION IS OPEN TO all full‐time undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a degree in an engineering or scientific discipline at an accredited college or university.

  • Salaried government or industry sponsored students are not eligible for the competition.
  • Students graduating prior to January 2012 are not eligible for the competition.

THE FOLLOWING PARTICIPATION RULES have been established. Authors failing to comply with all aspects of these rules may be disqualified at the sole discretion of the Student Session Technical Chairperson.

  • Each author listed must submit his/her own author information sheet as part of paper submission.
  • Certification is required from the student's faculty advisor that the submitted work is original and is related to the student's major.
  • All signed author information sheets must be received by April 23, 2012.
  • Participants may not author or co-author more than one paper.
  • Papers are limited to three authors.
  • All persons identified as authors in the technical paper must participate in the oral presentation—plan accordingly.
  • All student interaction should be done through the Conference Administrator. Technical questions and/or judging issues or concerns should be communicated with the Technical Chairperson, Stanley Kennedy (stanley.kennedy@aeroastro.com). Student contact with judges directly either before or after the competition is prohibited and may result in disqualification.

Paper Submission

Students do not need to submit an abstract. An electronic copy of the paper, in PDF format, must be submitted by email on or before April 20, 2012. Author information sheets must be received by April 23, 2012.

Guidelines

  • Papers may not exceed 12 single-space pages.
    • Page count includes all graphs, figures, tables, references and footnotes.
    • Papers exceeding 12 pages will be marked down.
  • Margins must be a minimum of one inch (1") on all sides, not including headers, footnotes and page numbers.
  • Papers must be double-column format and must be typed in 10-point font or larger.
  • Each page should be numbered at the bottom.
  • The first page must include the title of the paper, full names of all authors, name of the college or university, and the student's faculty advisor's name.

Paper Selection

A panel of judges drawn from industry, academia, and government will score each paper. Papers will be scored using the first three of the four criteria listed below. The top six papers will be selected for presentation at the Conference. Following presentation, the final scores are tallied and the Student Competition results are announced later that day at the Student Awards Ceremony.

Scoring Criteria

  • Technical Content and/or Scientific Merit (40%)
  • Industry Relevance (15%)
  • Clarity of Writing (20%)
  • Presentation and Response to Questions (25%)

Presentation

Student finalists must present their papers in the Student Competition technical session Wednesday, August 15, 2012. All persons identified as authors in the technical paper must participate in the oral presentation—plan accordingly. Students will be given a maximum of 12 minutes to present their paper, followed by 3 minutes for questions. Presentations exceeding 12 minutes will be marked down.