CAN STUDENT COMPETITIONS FOSTER THE INNOVATIVE DESIGN?
DS 77: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2014 13th International Design Conference
Year: 2014
Editor: Marjanovic Dorian, Storga Mario, Pavkovic Neven, Bojcetic Nenad
Author: Montagna, F.; Neirotti, P.; Paolucci ,E.
Series: DESIGN
Section: DESIGN EDUCATION
Page(s): 1421-1430
Abstract
Student competitions, besides being designed to foster the educational goal of improving students’ skills and knowledge, aim also at fostering innovation, developing leading technology and new solutions. However, it can happen that, instead of bringing positive effects, competitions create collateral effects to innovative research, resulting a large waste of resources. The innovation goal gets lost, leaving to competition the only educational role. In order to prove this, the author has investigated the Shell Eco-Marathon case, being fuel economy competitions among the most known.
Keywords: innovation paths, design processes, student competitions