Industrial Design Competition for High School Teams Seeks to Inspire Love of Engineering

Indiana, USA – VizSeek and 80/20 Inc., with the support of the National Science Foundation, are launching an online industrial design competition to inspire high school students to pursue an engineering and technology path.

The Internet Community-based Interactive Technology Environment (INCITE) contest is open by invitation only to teams from the US FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The teams will use the online design widget 8020edge in VizSpace, VizSeek’s online industrial community networking platform, to create 3D designs for industrial applications using 80/20 parts.

VizSeek plans that INCITE will be the first of many contests that companies like 80/20 Inc. will host in their VizSpaces, as both a promotional and an educational tool to bring together the worlds of social networking, industrial engineering and technology, and education.

“The U.S. is losing its manufacturing base, and fewer and fewer American students are graduating in engineering and technology fields. Competitions, especially in an online format that’s both fun and easy to use, are a great way to inspire creativity and generate interest,” said Nainesh Rathod, CEO of VizSeek. “Through VizSpace and contests like INCITE, we’re providing a way for the manufacturing and industrial community to reach out to our future engineers, while also promoting their products and services.”

The US FIRST Robotics Competition teams eligible for this competition are made up of high school students from around the country, who work throughout the year with the help of faculty advisors to build robots for specific purposes to compete against other teams’ robots. Steve Florence is a teacher of Engineering/Technology at West Lafayette High School who serves as the faculty advisor to the high school’s FRC team and is also working as an advisor to VizSeek in developing the INCITE contest. According to Florence, “The INCITE contest is a natural extension of the FRC competitions, where the kids use technology to solve a common problem. The online tools, the use of social networking, and the 80/20 parts will already be familiar to them, so this contest gives them the opportunity to put them all together to really be creative and innovative in their thinking.”

As the sponsor and host of the contest, 80/20 will be displaying the designs in the contest VizSpace, where VizSpace members from the industrial community will be able to vote for and comment on the designs. The design with the most votes will be declared winner. Doug Wood, partner and general manager of 80/20 Inc., says that, “80/20 Inc. is excited to be able to support young people with a love of engineering and design. The 8020edge tool will give the teams the freedom to use 80/20 parts to design anything they can imagine within the contest rules, and we’re looking forward to seeing some creative submissions.”

Contest Details
The students will work as teams, using VizSeek’s VizSpace to create team VizSpaces where they can add and use the online design widget 8020edge to create designs within the theme of “Material Handling,” using 80/20 parts. With the widget, students create a design and generate a bill of materials for the design, which must have a cost no higher than $1,000. Each team can submit up to five designs, and members of VizSpace from the industrial community will vote on the designs. The team with the winning design will receive either the 80/20 parts to create their design or a credit of $1,000 toward 80/20 parts that they can use in the robotics competition. A picture of the winning team and their design will also appear in the Made with 80/20 Stuff book, 80/20 Inc.’s flip book showcasing the many different ways their products are used.

Registration begins September 8, 2009, and only the first 50 teams to register will be eligible to compete.