From its inception in 1990 through 2001, the Design Education Committee of the ASME Design Engineering Division organized and coordinated the Young Design Engineer's Student Paper Competition as a vehicle to provide ASME student members a start on their professional path through ASME technical paper publication based upon student-design work - typically done in conjunction with a capstone or senior-design required course. Winners were chosen from submitted entries that had been reviewed and accepted for ASME technical paper publication. Only the paper was considered when choosing winners but the winning entries were invited to present their paper at the ASME Winter Annual Meeting, which became the ASME International Mechanical Engineers Conference and Exposition. Funding for prizes was generously provided by the ASME Old Guard.
The competition was not offered for a few years - and in 2005 there was an attempt to modify and have a web-based Young Design Engineer's Project Competition to try and encourage more entries by removing the technical paper aspect and providing the opportunity to have any number of 'evaluators' comment through internet participation.
In August 2008, as part of the International Design Engineering Technical Conference (IDETC '08) held in Brooklyn, NY, the Design Education Committee of the ASME Design Engineering Division re-instituted the Young Design Engineer's Paper Competition. Once again, based upon entries that have been accepted as ASME technical papers, winning finalists are chosen. However students now present their paper at the IDETC during a regular session and a 'grand-prize' winning entry is chosen.
The 2008 results: