Keys to Success in the IEEE Hardware Competition

Abstract

Abstract Keys to success in the IEEE Hardware competitionSince the 1980’s, IEEE has had an annual program at the regional level that included studentprograms. The student Hardware Competition is considered one of the highly acclaimed eventswithin the student programs. It continues to maintain its original focus of the design andbuilding of Robots that compete by performing a pre-defined task. Earlier names of thiscompetition were solar car contest, “seeker” car and design contest. Electrical engineeringprograms continue to take advantage of this contest by using it as a capstone or senior designproject for a group of students. With the growing popularity of this contest, the authors willhighlight key factors that will increase the likelihood of a student team to succeed. These factorsinclude advisor involvement, support from the Department/College/University, as well as fromthe student and local professional chapters, multidisciplinary teams and underclassmaninvolvement. The above list of contributing factors will be expounded in detailed with data frompast competitions validating the results.