Bentley announces 2011 Student Design Competition call for submissions

EXTON, PA. — Bentley Systems Inc. has announced that the call for submissions for its 2011 Student Design Competition is now open. University, college, community college, technical school, and high school students are invited to submit projects designed using Bentley software, along with a short essay describing their work.

Project submissions will be judged by a distinguished panel of educational leaders and industry professionals from around the world. The judges will focus on creativity and skill in applying design, engineering principles, and the use of Bentley technology.

The competition, which is sponsored by Bentley’s Be Careers Network, welcomes individual efforts as well as team efforts comprising no more than three members. All submissions must be received by March 18, 2011.

Bentley will award a $1,500 scholarship to the winner in each of the categories at the university, college, and community college level, and a $1,000 scholarship to the winner at the technical school and high school level.

“Our student design competition gives students a fun opportunity to experience some of the interesting challenges faced by architects and engineers as they go about the important work of improving the world’s infrastructure,” said Scott Lofgren, global director of Be Careers Network. “We also hope their participation encourages them to pursue rewarding careers in this field, thus helping sustain the infrastructure professions.”

Lofgren continued: “Last year’s project entries (www.bentley.com/StuDesignWinners) were extremely imaginative and demonstrated a great deal of talent and aptitude for not only the design sciences, but also for applying Bentley’s innovative software. I look forward to seeing what the students competing in this year’s competition can do with our new project categories. Undoubtedly, our panel of independent judges will once again have some tough decisions to make.”

University, college, and community college students can submit projects in one of four categories: “Innovation in Architectural Design,” “Innovation in Engineering Design,” “Innovation in Structural Engineering,” and “Communicating through Visualization.” Technical school and high school students can participate in the “Design a Concert Hall” category. For each category, students must clearly define the project’s problem, intent, and solution, and support their design models with architectural or engineering drawings using any of the applications in Bentley’s comprehensive portfolio of software.

Students, along with their winning projects, will be recognized at their respective schools, where they will receive a handcrafted award to display. In addition, the winners or winning teams will be able to choose 10 seats of Bentley software — from the more than 60 products available through the academic subscription — for use by their schools.

For more information about the submission process or to fill out a submission form, please visit www.bentley.com/StudentDesign2011.