Student Simulation Challenge: A Competition-based Composites Education Opportunity

Abstract

Professional societies perceive the need to attract younger members and students to their professions and are increasingly holding competitions and challenges in various fields. The objectives for organizing the student challenges are to promote shared, innovative and open solutions to challenging real-world problems. In 2014, the American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME) conducted seven student competitions in conjunction with its annual IMECE conference and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society regularly held five student challenges at the ICRA conference. The American Society for Composites initiated the student simulation challenge on a pilot basis in 2012. The objectives for the development of the student challenge are a) to encourage students to adopt the emerging simulation-based materials design and deployment as exemplified by the Integrative Computational Materials Engineering approach and the Materials Genome Initiative; b) to educate students in the application of modeling, interpretation of simulation results, and the significance of verification in the modeling and simulation loop. This paper describes the objectives, design of the challenge, outcomes, assessment of learning outcomes and lessons learnt from the first two years.