AEC releases call for entries for 2025 Student Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition

The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) and its research and education organization, the ET Foundation, have released the Call for Entries for the 2025 Student Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition. High School, university, trade school, design school, and community college students are all eligible to compete for a total of $15,500 in student scholarships to be awarded to the best designs as judged by a panel of aluminum extrusion professionals in Spring 2025. The competition awards are sponsored by AEC members ALMAG Aluminum Inc. in Brampton, Ontario; MI Metals, Inc. in Oldsmar, Florida; and Pennex Aluminum Company LLC in Wellsville, Pennsylvania. Entry in the competition is free with entries due by March 24, 2025.

 
Student scholarships will be presented as cash awards to the top student designs, including $5,000 for First Place, $4,000 for Second Place, and $3,000 for Third Place. Students also may compete for the Sustainable Design Challenge Scholarship Award of $3,500. This distinctive design category challenges students to think about aluminum extrusions as a holistic solution to a design problem by developing a product design that, in addition to the four basic judging criteria, best addresses societal and/or environmental challenges or concerns. The winning entry must be a viable extrusion-based product that meets the demands of the environment while contributing to the quality of life for its intended users.
 
The aluminum extrusion design competition aims to promote the understanding and use of extruded aluminum profiles and raise awareness of the applications, advantages and versatility of aluminum extrusion among future design and engineering professionals now investigating and learning about their career path. Students must be currently enrolled in school and design a product or system that incorporates at least one extruded aluminum component designed by the student. Individual Student and Student Team entries will be accepted. The Call for Entries, including an official entry form, can be downloaded from the website at AEC.org/design-competition.
 
Winning entries will be those that demonstrate the benefits of extruded aluminum—whether by inventing a new product or improving an existing one—by achieving the competition’s criteria and objectives of creativity, practicality, product/process improvement or advantage and market impact/potential.