2003-2004 DuPont IMAGINEERING COMPETITION
COMFORT AND FUNCTIONALITY AT HOME

Theme of the competition : Comfort and functionality at home
Innovative applications of engineering polymers for improved comfort and functionality
ˇ°Comfortˇ° relates to making daily life more enjoyable.
ˇ°Functionalityˇ° looks at the practical side of things. 
Take a new and creative look at how life at home could be improved - whether providing greater comfort or being more practical, through the design of a new product, or part of a product, or a service - or the re-design of existing products and services.
ˇ°Real comfort is exceptional because above all it is psychological. It rests on the affirmation of self and individualityˇ°, Jean-Claude Kaufmann, sociologist.

For the 2003-2004 competition, students and recently graduated designers throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia (China, Hong-Kong and Japan) are invited to provide a ˇ®new scopeˇ® on how certain activities at the heart of our habitat could be carried out better, to provide greater comfort or make them more practical.
This should be done through the design of a new product or part of a product, or a service - or the re-design of existing products or services (including furnishing and equipment).
The project, or at least one of its essential parts, has to integrate DuPont engineering polymers and emphasis must be put on the specific properties of the polymer(s) used.
Further details on the theme and organisational aspects of the competition will be available online www.dupont-imagineering.com - as from 15 September 2003.
The DuPont Imagineering design competition was established to encourage young engineers and designers to find new and innovative applications for engineering polymers and to emphasise the connection between creativity and technology that will become part of our lives tomorrow.
Besides the comfort and functionality features, the selection criteria for winning entries include creativity of the product and of the material, ease of manufacture and quality of presentation.

Quotationsˇ­
ˇ°In addition to time and space, the notion of comfort evolves in a different dimension:  affectivity. This is such a key factor that it makes it very difficult to objectively evaluate what belongs to the material field itself. There is the inner impulse that urges me towards an object, but there is also the attraction exerted by the object itself, which will bias my feeling. You can be seated and you can be comfortably seated: comfort would then be a plus, an unnecessary present.ˇ° (1)

ˇ°Technology and comfort are not indissociably linked: the first one advances and the second one doesnˇ®t, because each period of time has its own understanding of comfort.ˇ° (1)

ˇ°Several occasions brought us (ˇ­ in this bookˇ­) to note that a better use of new materials could result in objects that can offer performances defining new forms of relationship. Making something lightweight changes the ˇ®ˇ®transportableˇ° notion, making something transparent provides us with variable filters, making something flexible gives objects an intelligence that makes them interact with the environment.ˇ° (2)

ˇ°The ˇ°materialˇ° that objects are made of seems harder and harder to define according to simple, once-and-for-all set classes. The only way to describe it is to regard it as an agent endowed with performances: not to say ˇ°what it isˇ° but to tell ˇ°what it doesˇ°. (2)

Complete rules for China

ARTICLE 1 Participants
The competition is open to :
ˇ° Students from Europe, Middle-East, Africa and China, Hong Kong or Japan, officially enrolled for the 2003/2004-university year in the faculties of design, industrial design or engineering in a college or university.
ˇ° Young designers, design engineers and engineers from Europe, Middle-East, Africa and China, Hong Kong or Japan, who graduated from 2000 onwards.

For candidates from Europe, Middle-East and Africa :
The candidates who live, study or work in one of the five organising countries - France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom - must register and submit their project in that country only and write their presentation in the corresponding language. All others are requested to select one of the five languages and to register and submit their projects in the corresponding country.

For candidates from Asia/Pacific :
Candidates who live, study or work in China, Hong-Kong or Japan must register in that particular country whatever their nationality.

Participation in the competition may be as an individual or as part of a team (maximum three members). The members of the same team may be enrolled in different schools, but must all comply with the conditions of participation.
The entry form must include the required information for every candidate in the team; the entrant who fills in the form will be considered as the main correspondent for the competition secretary.
If a team project receives an award, the prize will be shared between the members of the team. A participant, whether acting individually or as part of a team, can only submit one project in one single country.
DuPont employees and their families are not allowed to enter the competition.

ARTICLE 2 Organisation of the competition
The international competition will be held in two phases :
ˇ° a regional contest centred around each of the
organising countries or regions (China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Spain and United Kingdom), with the award of a first, a second and a third prize.
ˇ° the international final, with the award of one prize.
The first-prize winner of each regional contest will go forward to contest the international final.

ARTICLE 3 Dates
15 September 2003  Registrations open on www.dupont-imagineering.com
5 December 2004 Registrations closing date
31 January, 2004 Initial submission for pre-selection
15 February, 2004  Announce final entrants
30 April 2004  Submission of final
  projects
May 2004 Meeting of Jury
July 2004 Award Ceremony
September 2004  International Jury Meeting
Autumn 2004  International Award
  Ceremony

Registration forms will be available from the website, www.DOLCN.com and in participating design colleges and universities as from September, 2003. They also can be obtained by mail or telephone from the competition secretaries of one of the five countries.
Competition secretary China
Du Pont China Holding Co., Ltd
Unit 1101, China World Tower 2
No. 1 Jianguomen Wai Avenue
Beijing 100004, China
Fax: 86 (010) 6505 8008
Email: china@dupont-imagineering.com
The deadline for registration is 5 December, and initial submission of projects for pre-selection is 31 January 2004.
Fianl projects must be delivered to the secretary by 30 April 2004, 6 pm at the latest, or sent by mail with sufficient postage paid (do not send by registered mail) no later than 30 April 2004.
The postmark will be taken as the postage date.
The national jury panels will judge the entries in spring 2004. The national winners will be announced in July 2004. The international winner will be announced during the fourth quarter of 2004.

ARTICLE 4 Conditions for enrolment
Participation in the DuPont Imagineering competition is free.
To participate, interested parties must apply to the course leaders at their college/university or to the relevant competition secretary. They may also apply directly on the competition website.
The participants must provide, with their project, a certificate of enrolment in a college or a university for the current university year if they are a student, or a certified copy of their diploma or qualification if they are a designer, design engineer or engineer. An acknowledgement of receipt confirming participation will be sent to all participants with a confidential code each participant must mention on his project. No name should be mentioned on the entry form. Any project that does not mention the confidential number or includes the name of the entrant(s), his/her college/university or his/her company will be refused.

ARTICLE 5 Theme
HOME
Innovative applications of engineering polymers for improved comfort and functionality
The participants must create an original project - consisting entirely or partly of engineering polymers from DuPont embracing comfort and functionality in any kind of home application.

ARTICLE 6 Project contents
Pre-selection project: Participants must make an initial project submission, containing the following mandatory information:
ˇ° Identified problem
ˇ° Suggested solution
ˇ° Description of the concept to be submitted (sketchˇ­)
ˇ° Use of engineering polymers
The project can be submitted in Acrobat format.
 

It can be either sent via the website www.dupont-imagineering.com or by mail to the Imagineering competition secretary.
Final project: Those entrants nominated during pre-selection will need to submit their final project as a detailed, technical documentation.
The main component, or at least one of the major parts, of the submitted concept must make use of injection-moulded engineering polymers from DuPont, with emphasis on the specific properties required from those materials.
The final project should be submitted with at least four A3-size sheets and can be accompanied by any supporting material that may be useful to gain a full comprehension of the concept (PC compatible multimedia presentation, mock-upˇ­).
Projects must reflect original and creative ideas whilst being capable of mass-production. The main component, or one or more of its essential parts, must make use of, or incorporate, injection moulded DuPont engineering polymers, as defined in the preamble of these rules.
Projects can comprise of a 3D prototype or mock-up, sketches and detailed technical drawings. In all cases, a full technical description, indicating the functional characteristics of the object or device and reasons for the choice of the material(s) must be attached to the submitted project.
Each participant must make sure the object or device he/she is developing does not yet exist or, if it does, that he/she adds a significant improvement to it.

ARTICLE 7 Selection criteria
Entries will be judged according to the following criteria: creativity, innovation, ergonomics, aesthetics, industrial feasibility, quality of presentation of the project, choice of the subject and compliance with the theme, good use of DuPont engineering polymer(s).
The selection criteria will award equal merit to the content of the projects and the quality of the technical documentation / explanations attached.

ARTICLE 8 Acceptance of entry projects
Entries must be sent to the competition secretaries as specified in article 2.
Incomplete entries, as defined in articles 1, 3, 5 and 6, and those not complying with the rules of the competition will not be accepted.
Submission of an application form by the participant implies unreserved acceptance of the competition rules and decisions of the jury.
The competition organisers shall bear the projects storage and transportation costs from the date of receipt until the date of return to participants.
DuPont will in no case be held responsible for any loss or damage to entry projects.

ARTICLE 9 Return of projects
Entries will be sent back within the six months following the awards ceremony.

ARTICLE 10 Jury
In a first phase, participants have to submit their projects with the full mandatory information: identified problem, suggested solution, description of the concept to be submitted (sketchˇ­), use of engineering polymers.
A preliminary jury will select 20 best projects among the received entries, judged on conformity with rules and suitability of the project.
Those selected entrants will finalize their project before presentation to the final jury, which will nominate the 3 awards winners.
The competition judges include designers, representatives from industry and/or DuPont representatives.
The jury can give special awards to any project deserving such recognition.

ARTICLE 11 Prizes
The first-placed winner(1award) of each regional contest will be awarded a prize of € 5,000, the runner-up(2 awards) a prize of € 1,500, with € 400 for third place(5 awards). The first-placed winner from each of the regions will compete for the international prize of a further € 5,000. If the winner is a student - and in this case only -- their educational establishment will receive a € 3,000 award.
All the nominated projects will be displayed during the awards ceremony.

ARTICLE 12 Responsibility of the organisers
The organisers reserve the right to shorten, suspend, defer, modify or cancel this competition for whatever reason. They agree to inform the participants of any change, but can in no way be held responsible for any loss.

ARTICLE 13 Ownership of the projects
Entrants retain ownership of projects entered in the competition and all rights under Law  of Peopleˇ®s Republic of China relating to intellectual and artistic copyright.
All participants must understand their relevant property rights before disclosing any information.
The organisers deny all responsibility whatsoever in case of damage resulting from the entrants carelessness in regard to industrial property protection.
The prize-winners allow, in advance, the organizers or their representatives to use their names and images as well as those of their projects for ten years, on paper, audiovisual or digital media.
The organisers or their representatives may also refer to such projects in the media and information brochures and display them at any public exhibitions of their choice, without restriction on duration. The organisers may take photographs of the prize-winners and their projects, and make copies of the latter, provided due mention is made of the winnersˇ® name.

ARTICLE 14 Interpretation
The current rules can be obtained from the regional competition secretaries.
The interpretation of these rules remains the exclusive right of the organisers.

ARTICLE 15 Confidentiality
Any material sample provided by Du Pont China Holding Co., Ltd. to the participants and companies for the competition is considered strictly confidential. Hence, the participants and the companies are not allowed to sell, display, or give away these samples to anybody. They also agree not to analyse the composition of these samples.