Congratulations to the 2024 winners!
1st Place
Louisiana State University: Eva Counts, Madisson Boutte, Kyla "Oliver" Deal, Khai LeJeune, Elizabeth Peters, and Mikayla Powell
Semi-Automated Soybean Cutting Device
2nd Place
Oklahoma State University: Gavin McCullough
Portable Small Scale Pecan Cleaner
3rd Place
University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Kalynn Meyer, Riley Eckhardt, and Trevor Vancura
Automated Swine Marking Device
Past Winners
The purpose of the AGCO National Student Design Competition, is to encourage undergraduate students to participate in the basic design of an engineering project useful to agriculture and related areas and to provide an arena of professionalism in which the student can experience peer recognition of a well conceived and executed design project.
Cash awards of $1,250, $1,000 and $750 will be presented to the first, second and third place entries. The method of distributing the prize money to design team members shall be determined by the respective members of each team. All particpants of the first, second and third place entries shall receive certificates of recognition. Individuals of the first place entry shall receive desk plaques. Additionally, the Academic Department of the first place entry will receive a $300 scholarship and a wall plaque. The wall plaque will include the names of the design team and their faculty advisor.
All prize money, desk plaques, certificates, wall plaque for the first place recipient and university, and certificates for other placing recipients will be sent after the meeting.
Eligibility
Contestants must be Student Members of ASABE and undergraduates at the time their design projects are conducted. Candidates will be declared ineligible for the competition if more than twelve (12) months have lapsed between the awarding of the degree and the ASABE Annual Interational Meeting at which the winner of the competition will be decided.
Papers submitted for the K. K. Barnes Student Paper Awards Competition may not be entered in the AGCO National Student Design Competition.
Projects may be conceived and executed by multiple contestants. All members of the design groups must be eligible as outlined above.
Competition Entry Requirements
Projects must involve engineering design, which is the process of devising a machine, component, system, or process to meet a desired need. It involves analysis, synthesis and decision-making processes (often iterative), in which the basic sciences, mathematics and engineering sciences, and technology are applied to convert resources optimally to meet a stated objective. The words "machine, component, system, or process" and "convert resources optimally" operate to indicate that sociological, economic, aesthetic, legal, ethical, etc. considerations can be included. All projects must be related to agriculture or related areas.
The design projects must include:
-A written report (see format for entries).
-Drawings and/or specifications that describe the design.
-Extensive or substantial test or performance data obtained from (1) a prototype or physical model of the machine or critical component, and/or (2) a computer simulated test of the system or process.
Submission Deadline: May 15, midnight ET
Report Submission
-No single school may submit more than two entries for a given year's competition.
-Entries are to be submitted electronically to the attention of the Awards Administrator no later than May 15, midnight ET.
-Eligibility will be determined by the date the Awards Administrator receives the complete entry.
Format for Entries
The total length of the written report (including title page, table of contents, main body, references, appendices, etc.) cannot exceed 30 pages nor shall the electronic file size exceed 4 megabytes. The first three pages must be formatted in accordance with items 1, 2 and 3.
1. Title Page
The cover page of the entry shall state:
a. the project title;
b. full name(s) of the contestant(s);
c. name of the department and school;
d. name(s) of the advisor(s) for the paper;
e. expected date(s) of graduation;
f. signatures of contestant(s), advisor(s), and the student branch faculty advisor (department head if no student branch exists).If electronic signature cannot be sent, a copy of the dated and signed title page will need to be faxed to the attention of Sarah Cook at (269) 429-3852; and
g. date of signature.
In case of multi-authored papers, all correspondence will be directed to the first author unless otherwise requested as a footnote on the cover page.
2. Second Page
The second page shall contain:
a. The project title;
b. an abstract of the project report with a length not to exceed 250 words (do not include literature citations or references to tables, figures, or equations in the abstract); and
c. acknowledgements which must include specific contributions of all other individuals, organizations and/or companies that have made any supportive contributions to the project such as drafting, typing, prototype construction, photo or art work, financial support, etc.
3. Third Page
The third page shall contain the table of contents.
4. Main Body
The main body of the report should be organized under appropriate headings. The presentation should follow a logical pattern and conform to good technical writing standards. Drawings and/or specifications and test data should be entered as appropriate. The length of the main body of the report is limited to a maximum of 5000 words. Font size must not be less than 10 and all margins must not be less than 0.8 inches.
5. References
Provide a complete reference list for all sources cited in the document.
6. Appendices
Appendices can be added to provide information that helps support/clarify the main body of the report. Each appendix should be titled and listed in the Table of Contents. Note that competition judges will not be required to read appendices, although the content of the appendices could factor into a judge's evaluation.
Selection of Winners
Selection of winners will be in two phases. The first phase is based on written submissions. Three judges will score the papers in accordance with the Student Design Competition score sheet. These judges will then forward their scores to the chair of the AGCO Student Design Competition committee for final ranking. Final ranking is determined by first calculating a group average and group standard deviation for all scores submitted by the three judges. These two values are then used to normalize the scores submitted by each judge (normalization involves the transformation of the scores submitted by each judge so that the average and standard deviation of the scores given by each judge match the group average and group standard deviation, respectively). An average "normalized" score will then be calculated for each entry. The AGCO Student Design Competition committee chair will forward the normalized scores to the ASABE Awards Administrator who will be responsible for inviting the teams submitting the three top scoring written reports to the ASABE Annual International Meeting for phase two judging. Should any of the top three teams be unable to participate, the Awards Administrator shall invite one or more of the next ranking entries.
In the second phase, judges will evaluate the oral presentations of participants. Oral scores from the judges are normalized in the same manner as was used for the written report scores. The normalized oral score is added to the written score to determine final standing of the top three entries. Decision of the judges is final.
Selection of Judges
The ASABE Student Design Committee chair shall select three individuals to judge the written portion of the competition. The individuals should be members of different ASABE Districts. Judge selection should reflect the fact that design entries may originate from any technical area in agricultural, food, or biological engineering.
Once the scoring of the written portion of the competition has been completed, the ASABE Student Design Committee chair shall select three individuals to judge the oral portion of the competition. These individuals should be members of different ASABE Districts, and they should have no significant past or current affiliation with any of the schools participating in the oral portion of the competition. Individuals selected to judge the written portion of the competition are also eligible to judge the oral portion of the competition as long as they have no significant past or current affiliation with any of the schools participating in the oral portion of the competition.
Sample Judging Score Sheet
Disposition of Entries
ASABE reserves the right to publish entries in whole or in part in Society publications.