2019 Design Competition

BRIEF

ASHRAE sponsors these competitions to encourage students to become involved in a profession that is crucial to insuring a sustainable future for our Earth – the design of energy-efficient HVAC systems. ASHRAE will recognize the outstanding student design projects at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held February 2020 in Orlando, Florida.

The student design competition’s guidelines provide enough background information to enable the teams to design or select the HVAC system for the given building, or to design a sustainable building implementing an integrated building design process (the architectural and building design for sustainability, and its supporting mechanical and electrical systems) for the given program.

The Integrated Sustainable Building Design (ISBD) competition’s aim is to encourage students to extend their knowledge beyond the core mechanical systems. For the ISBD category, the final design level presented may be in a preliminary stage, as the competition’s basic intention is to challenge students’ imaginative thinking and creative engineering approach to the building and all of its systems.

Teams may compete in one of the three categories:

HVAC Design Calculations
HVAC System Selection
Integrated Sustainable Building Design (ISBD)

ASHRAE recommends that the project groups consist of at least two members from an undergraduate engineering or architecture curriculum for the HVAC Design Calculations or HVAC System Selection and at least three members (architecture or construction, mechanical & electrical) for the ISBD competition. Team members can be from multiple colleges. All team members must be enrolled during the semester/term in which they contribute to the design.

SCHEDULE

May 3, 2019
Entries must be submitted electronically by this date by uploading the entry to the ASHRAE Society FTP site established for this purpose. Only teams who register will get the FTP site information emailed to them, so please register at least 30 days prior to this date to allow for processing.
Only ASHRAE chapters with registered teams will have the FTP site emailed to them as well.
Teams that do not have a local chapter are required to adhere to this same deadline. Your entry will be evaluated by the closest chapter to your school or your Regional Vice-Chair (RVC) for Student Activities.

May 17, 2019
Deadline for local ASHRAE Chapters to forward their selection of the best entry in each category to the Student Activities Regional Vice Chair (RVC). Chapters are to download the necessary entries from the ASHRAE FTP site for local judging. FTP site information is only distributed to those chapters that have teams registered to participate in the competition.

Once your selection is made simply email the names of the winning entries to your RVC with a copy to kthomson@ashrae.org by the deadline above.

If applicable, chapters should ALSO nominate a “rising star” as well. The Rising Star must be a school that does not qualify for the regional or national competition, but is a quality entry and the school has not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

June 3, 2019
Deadline for local ASHRAE Student Activities Regional Vice Chairs to forward their selection of the best entry in each category to ASHRAE Headquarters for national judging. Regional Vice Chairs are to download the necessary entries in your region from the ASHRAE FTP site for judging.
Once your selection is made simply email the names of the entries to kthomson@ashrae.org by the deadline above.

All entries that pass regional judging will be submitted to the national judging committee for final judging.
If applicable, Regional Vice Chairs can nominate a “rising star” as well. The Rising Star must be a school that does not qualify for the national competition, but is a quality entry and the school has not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

June 21, 2019
National level competition under the direction of the Student Activities Design Competition Subcommittee will complete evaluation of national level entries, and will select 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in each category. In order to encourage additional schools to participate in the competition, a “Rising Star” winner will be chosen within each category from among those schools that have not had a winning entry in the previous three years.

Please Note: The Society level of the competition is conducted during a closed subcommittee session and therefore, team members and/or faculty advisors, or other persons outside of the Student Activities Committee, may not attend. Any violation of this notice can result in a team’s disqualification from the competition.

Monday August 5, 2019
Winners announced

AWARDS

First Place: $2,000 plus a representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights lodging and $100 expenses for attendance at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Atlanta where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Plenary. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

Second Place: A representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights’ lodging at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Atlanta where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

Third Place: A representative from the team will receive free transportation, two nights lodging at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Atlanta where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.

Rising Star: A representative from the team will receive free transportation and two nights lodging for attendance at the 2020 ASHRAE Winter Meeting to be held in Atlanta where the award will be presented at the ASHRAE Student Program. A 24 x 36 inch poster is required for display at the ASHRAE Student Program.