We would like to thank everyone for your participation in the design competition! There were many innovative submissions that highlighted the excellent students here at A&M, across all disciplines. I’m happy to finally be able to announce the winners to you all! The jury is pleased to announce that three prizes, first, second, and a tie for third, as well as one honorable mention, have been awarded to the following submissions:

First prize of $1000 goes to:

• The team of Will McKinney and Brooks McKinney for their innovative modular aquaponics design

Second prize of $500 goes to:

• Britteny Martinez for her unique flexible and customizable ceiling tile design

Third prize of $200 is split between two designs:

• The team comprised of Aamer Arshad Kazi, Sitangshu Chatterjee, Het Pandit, Vivek Patel, and Omprakash Das for their design of an innovative optic fibre matrix containment unit
• Shelby Warrington for her customizable lamp shade featuring colored glass design

Honorable Mention goes to:

• The team of Sarojeet Deb and Shantanu Vyas with their green building façade design

The winners have been announced on the competition website: https://matrixtraydesign.wordpress.com/competition-results/

BiSSL is one of two research labs cohosting an A&M student weekend design concept competition coming up November 2^nd-7^th, with prizes of $1000 (first prize) $500 (second prize) and $200 (third prize). Texas A&M students with winning designs will have the opportunity to work with Dr. Astrid Layton and Dr. Ahmed Ali’s multidisciplinary research team (both Mechanical Engineering and Architecture departments).

General Motors is committed to becoming landfill-free by 2020 and to achieve this, they are seeking to divert byproducts from ending up in landfills by generating potential applications for their more challenging materials. This includes the matrix trays used to package electronics through the automated manufacturing process. Texas A&M Architecture and Mechanical Engineering are pairing with General Motors to host a design competition to promote byproduct reuse and sustainable industry practices, specifically looking for design concepts that generate new applications for these matrix trays. Deliverables are a short (1 page or less) description and a visual aid (computer generated drawing or neat hand drawing) explaining the design concept.

For more information on the competition please visit https://matrixtraydesign.wordpress.com/

Registration is open to A&M student individuals or teams, with a deadline of November 1st at midnight, registration can be done here.