Design Fair & Expo

International Conference on Engineering Design 2017

August 22nd, 2017
University of British Columbia, Vancouver

The International Conference on Engineering Design is a biannual meeting for design experts from around the world. This year, it will be held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Campus, on August 22nd. The theme is Resource-Sensitive Design.

As part of this event, we are going to be holding the ICED 2017 Design Fair and Expo. This is your opportunity to interact with design professionals from around the world, present a project you completed in the area of resource-sensitive design, and explore what other groups are doing in this field within Vancouver and beyond.

We will be judging participants in both Expo and Fair, and awarding prizes to combined groups in the following categories:

  • Elementary
  • High school
  • University design course
  • University student teams

First place – $125, second place – $75, third place – $50. Thanks to the Patrick Campbell Chair in Engineering Design for funding these awards!

Resource-Sensitive Design

Engineers can have a big impact on the ecological footprint of a society, the technologies that are available for various communities, and how efficient products and processes are. That’s why it’s important for engineers to consider the impact of their designs on communities and the environment.

There are three areas that we can focus on:

Design to advance resource-limited societies:

Designing products that will work well in communities that have issues like no roads for getting materials, equipment or fuel into the community, have limited or no access to electricity or clean water, or have cultural preferences that impact how well products are accepted.

Design to protect critical resources:

Designing products that use less of our limited resources (like oil or clean water) when they are made, and/or do not damage those resources (such as by creating water pollution).

Design to embrace resource limitations:

Instead of seeing limited resources as a problem, using the limitations as a motivation to create simple, elegant and functional designs.

Design Fair

The Challenge: Complete a Resource-Sensitive Design Project

You need to produce a poster and a technical artifact (working device, model, computer model or application (or mock-up), etc.), showcasing Resource-Sensitive Design, and show your work at our ICED 2017 Design Fair.

Projects will be judged by a panel of design experts from the conference in the following four equally-weighted categories:

  1. Theme relevance,
  2. Technical merit,
  3. Innovation,
  4. Communication

Open to:

  • High school students (individuals and teams)
  • Undergraduate engineering students (individuals and teams) – includes projects completed for courses, capstone projects, student design teams, etc.

How to get involved:

  1. Make sure at least one person can attend the event
  2. Submit your individual/team information and a brief project proposal below. Organizers will confirm that your project fits within the theme
  3. Work on and complete your project
  4. Come ready to dazzle the judges!
Learn More Submit Your Design

Design Expo

Open to:

  • Geering Up participants
  • UBC First Year Engineering and MECH 223 design teams
  • eng•cite participants
  • Participants with other Partners

How to get involved:

  1. Be invited by one of the ICED 2017 Design Expo partners (e.g. Geering Up, UBC First Year Engineering, eng•cite) after completing a project in one of the themes
  2. Make sure at least one person can attend the event
  3. Submit your individual/team information below
  4. Bring your completed project and be prepared to speak to attendees about it (OR in select cases, ensure your completed project will arrive by delivering it to the ICED 2017 Design Expo partner organization that invited you – you should still plan to attend).
Learn More Register