Purdue students among top winners in aluminum design contest
Robert Sibley, a Purdue sophomore in industrial design from Carlsbad, Calif., placed first for his sawhorse clamp design in the International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition. Sibley is one of five Purdue students who were among the competition's top winners. His design, called Trestle, uses anodized extruded aluminum and offers a durable, lightweight system that is easy to assemble, making it convenient and portable. (Image provided)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Five Purdue University industrial design students received some of the top honors in an international aluminum design competition.
Robert Sibley, a sophomore from Carlsbad, Calif., placed first for his sawhorse clamp design, called Trestle, in the International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition. The design, which uses anodized extruded aluminum, offers a durable, lightweight system that is easy to assemble, making it convenient and portable.
Evan Frenz, a sophomore from Vincennes, Ind., placed second for his bicycle disk brake design called HALT. The advantages of his design include lower costs, strength and durability, and the ability to handle wet weather conditions and resist corrosion. Sibley was awarded a $3,000 scholarship, and Frenz received a $2,000 scholarship.
Alex Hill, a senior from Fishers, Ind., who is double-majoring in industrial design and sports movement science, tied for third place with ReNew, a rehabilitation and resistance system. This design concept is a walking beam for people who are recovering from an injury. The other third-place finishers were from Carleton and Dongseo universities. A grand prize also was awarded to a student from Drexel University.
Purdue's Arman Kirim, a sophomore from Istanbul, Turkey, and Rachel Blake, a sophomore from Indianapolis, also received honorable mentions. Their designs, respectively, were Lume, a light bulb fixture system, and Queuench, a queue line bench system.
The students entered the contest as part of an industrial design undergraduate course on presentation techniques. The contest challenged students to utilize aluminum in the manufacturing process to create a new or improved product, said Calvin Xi Chen, a graduate student and industrial design course instructor. The students were honored based on their computer-aided designs. No prototypes have been developed yet.
There are more than 100 students studying industrial design in the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts, which is housed in the College of Liberal Arts.
Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Source: Calvin Xi Chen, graduate student and instructor, 765-430-2512, xchen@purdue.edu
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2010 International Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition student winners