Meeting of the Minds has always included a competition segment in the Symposium, sponsored by several University organizations, academic departments and schools; individuals; and corporations. If you would like to compete, or are required to, please read the following information and check the appropriate box on the online registration form. The deadline for registration is April 1, 2011 - students must be registered by the deadline, and check each applicable competition to compete in. All competitors will be required to attend the Awards Ceremony at 5:00 p.m. held at the Meeting of the Minds on May 4.
The Allen Newell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
Open only to students in SCS. This endowed award, established in 1993, is presented annually by the School of Computer Science. Allen Newell had a long, rich and distinguished scientific career that contributed to multiple subdisciplines in computer science. Still, each individual endeavor was pursued with a characteristic style that his colleagues, students, and friends recognized as essential to Allen. Owing to the breadth and scope of Allen's contributions, this award recognizes extraordinary undergraduate research in his scientific style rather than computer science research in a particular area. The criteria by which a research project is judged is predicated, foremost, on the belief that a good idea is not enough. The qualities that transform a good idea into good science can be captured in three maxims attributable to Allen:
1) Good science responds to real phenomena or real problems.
2) Good science is in the details.
3) Good science makes a difference.
Alumni Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Computer Science
Open only to students in SCS. The Alumni Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Computer Science, established in 2003, is granted on behalf of Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science alumni. The Award recognizes technical excellence in research and development. The Award is also intended to promote awareness within the undergraduate community that graduation represents both the end of an important phase of life and the beginning of a new phase within the vibrant Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science community as an alumnus. The Alumni Award recognizes such factors as contribution to the state of the art; technical excellence; potential societal impact; accessibility; quality of the written, oral, and poster presentations; and generated excitement among the alumni community participating in the process.
Award for Artistic Excellence
The Award for Artistic Excellence receives support from two sources: engineers in support of the arts and The Center for the Arts in Society (CAS) at Carnegie Mellon. Visual and performing arts presentations are eligible for this award. Semi-finalists will be chosen from abstracts submitted with symposium registrations. Semi-finalists will be notified prior to the symposium. Judges will attend presentations/performances the day of the symposium to select award winners. Winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony in McConomy Auditorium beginning at 5 PM the day of the symposium.
The Boeing Blue Skies Award
Boeing is pleased to sponsor The Boeing Blue Skies Award, created to encourage undergraduate students to present innovative research with applications involving technologies in wireless communications, networking protocols, sensors, controls and algorithms, cyber security, and autonomous vehicles. The Blue Skies Award is designed to reward students who dream big and deliver creative solutions to problems through sound engineering principles and innovative technology applications.
Three prizes will be awarded:
1st Place: Game Changer - $1000
2nd Place: Most Creative - $500
3rd Place: Best Use of Technology - $250
Prizes will be awarded during the Awards Ceremony, McConomy Auditorium, at 5 p.m.
CIT Honors Poster Competition
All CIT Honors students are required to present their work at the Undergraduate Research Symposium on May 4, 2011. Please do not schedule any activities (job interviews, plant trips, etc.) which might conflict with your participation. You will be assigned to the "CIT Poster Session" during which a panel of faculty and industry judges will circulate. You should be prepared to present a brief overview of your project and answer any questions: laptops or other equipment are permitted. Three cash prizes will be awarded.
The criteria for the prizes will be similar to those used by Sigma Xi, except that no formal presentation is involved. Instead, the presentation will be informal and interactive as the judges circulate. The criteria will include abstract quality, quality and significance of work, oral and visual presentation, and response to questions.
During the first round of judging, students should be prepared to speak for about 5-10 minutes about their work using their poster as their visual aid. The second round of judging will allow each finalist a 10 minute presentation (again using their poster as a visual aid) and a short question and answer session with the judges.
Students will be selected for the finalist session of presentations and will be announced at the Symposium welcome at 2:30pm in Kirr Commons. The final round will take place from 3-5pm in Rangos 1.
You may obtain a poster board from Kourtney Kissel in Scaife Hall 110 the week of April 18, 2011.
IBM Undergraduate "Smarter Planet" Award
IBM, in association with the CMU ACM Student Chapter, is proud to sponsor the Undergraduate "Smarter Planet" Award. As CMU students, you have the opportunity to change the way the world works. Worldwide systems and processes enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold; services to be delivered; everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move; and billions of people to work, govern themselves, and live. For the first time in history, almost anything can become digitally aware and interconnected. Smart airports, smart banks, smart roadways, smart cities with so much technology available at such a low cost, the list of possibilities is endless. New levels of global integration mean that we are all now connected economically, technically and socially. But being connected is not sufficient. We must also infuse intelligence into our systems and ways of working. The world has become flatter and smaller. Now it must become smarter--a "Smarter Planet."
This award is designed to challenge some of the brightest minds on the planet - - CMU Undergraduates - - no matter what their field of study - to collaboratively advance the state of the planet and society through interdisciplinary research.
To compete for this award, you must check the appropriate box on the registration form. You may apply for this award in addition to applying for other awards.
A panel of judges from IBM will rate your poster or presentation based upon the following criteria:
- The extent to which your project helps the world become a smarter, better world
- The extent to which your project is innovative and represents new and creative thought
- The extent to which your project has or utilizes the 3 attributes of a smarter system:
a. Instrumented real world systems (these may be simulated for the sake of the project)
b. Interconnection (e.g., Sensor Andrew, the internet)
c. Intelligence that creates a smarter system
- The quality of your poster or presentation in explaining your project and your results
- Your response to questions.
Two awards will be presented, each for $250. The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony in McConomy Auditorium at 5 p.m.
Johnson & Johnson Undergraduate Research Awards
Johnson & Johnson is accepting project submissions in the field of Information Technology, with a focus on Innovation. The Johnson & Johnson I/T Innovation organization is responsible for identifying possibilities to drive the Johnson & Johnson business forward. A core component of our strategy is fostering a culture of innovation within I/T.
We are looking for Innovative project ideas that will show creative, one of a kind I/T solutions that drive market leadership and competitive advantage: First prize - $1000, Second Prize - $500, Third Prize - $250. Prizes will be awarded for the top three winners during the Awards Ceremony, McConomy Auditorium, 5 p.m.
Annual Lockheed Martin ECE Undergraduate Project Awards
Sponsored by Lockheed Martin, Organized by Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma, PA
The Sigma Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu at Carnegie Mellon is proud to present the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Project Awards sponsored by Lockheed Martin. This competition is designed to encourage undergraduate ECE students to present their class/research projects and motivate them to learn from others' work.
Eligible projects must be done in the 2010-2011 academic year. The project must have a course number associated with it. CIT Honors research projects, as well as Sophomore, Junior, and Senior ECE course projects meet this requirement. Every project must have the support of a faculty member. Entries in other contests are welcomed. Group projects are also welcomed, but at least 50% of the students in a group must be undergraduates. Any one person may only have two entries in the contest. Every entry must have a project poster and all entries must be submitted by April 1st. Special circumstances will be discussed on a case by case basis.
Projects will be judged by a panel of ECE faculty and Lockheed Martin representatives. The ECE Faculty and Lockheed Martin representatives will be decided after the registration deadline.
All students will be asked to give an oral presentation for the judges. All judges' decisions will be final and the following judging criteria will be used:
-Abstract quality
-Clarity of objective
-Organization of thoughts
-General quality of work
-Oral presentation skills
-Visual presentation
-Quality response to questions
A total of $2000 will be awarded to 6 projects:
First Prize: The winning project will be awarded $750.
Runners-Up: Two runners-up will be awarded $500 each.
Judges' Choices: Three additional outstanding projects will receive $250 each.
All winning projects must be willing to turn over their project posters to the ECE department at Carnegie Mellon University.
Psychology Department Competition
The department of Psychology is sponsoring a poster/presentation competition for all undergraduate students who are presently advised by a member of the psychology department. A panel of faculty judges will evaluate each project on the following criteria:
- Quality of the work
- Clarity of the objectives
- Significance of the work
- Creativity of the work
- Oral presentation (weighted more for talks)
- Visual representation (weighted more for posters)
- Response to questions
All students should be prepared to present a brief overview of their research and to answer questions regarding their work.
Cash prizes will be awarded for the best talk and the best poster. The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
Richard Schoenwald Phi Beta Kappa Undergraduate Research Prize
Open only to members (or members-select) of Phi Beta Kappa. This award is sponsored by CMU's Phi Beta Kappa chapter and named after Dr. Richard Schoenwald, late professor of History. Dr. Schoenwald was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a proponent of undergraduate involvement in research, and the leader of CMU's first application effort (in the early 1970's) to shelter a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Carnegie Mellon. A cash prize totaling $500 will be awarded to the winner(s) of this award (a maximum of 3 winners will be selected). Undergraduate student members of the chapter (this includes Fall 2010 initiates and those approved for the May 2011 initiation) who present projects in liberal arts and sciences at the Undergraduate Research Symposium are eligible for this award. The abstracts of all eligible students will be reviewed by a Phi Beta Kappa committee, and approximately 10 finalists will be selected and notified prior to the symposium date. Judges will attend the finalists' symposium presentations and will use these presentations as the final component in their deliberations and selection.
Upsilon of Pennsylvania (the Carnegie Mellon University Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society) has committed to an annual allocation of $500 to be awarded to one to three students members of the chapter. Students' projects are judged along the following criteria:
quality/clarity of presentation and responses to questions
Winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
Sigma Xi Poster Competition
The Sigma Xi poster competition is an independently sponsored event within the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Coordinated by the Carnegie Mellon chapter of Sigma Xi, a national honor society for those engaging in scientific research, the competition is open to students presenting posters in the quantitative sciences. In the past, this has included students from the life sciences, physical sciences, engineering, and quantitative social sciences. You will be assigned a time to give a short presentation next to your poster. (The use of laptops should be allowed only to present data such as movies or time lapse of an experiment. They should not be used as a substitution of the poster, but only for data or images that are difficult to print or be represented on paper.) A panel of judges judges drawn from the University and industry will rate your presentation using the following equally-weighted criteria:
-abstract quality (clear, concise,appropriate length)
-clarity of objective
-organization of thoughts
-general quality of work
-significance of work
-oral presentation skills
-visual presentation quality
-response to questions
Finalists will be selected for the finalist session of presentations and will be announced at the Symposium welcome at 2:30pm in Kirr Commons. The final round will take place from 3-5pm in Rangos 2 and 3.
Cash prizes will be awarded and winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
The SRC-URO Poster Competition
Open only to SRC-URO students. Students who have participated in the SRC-URO (Semi-Conductor Research Corporation - Undergraduate Research Opportunities) program in spring 2010 through Spring 2011 are eligible to enter in the SRC-URO Poster Competition. This competition seeks to recognize significant and creative work supported by the SRC programs and to encourage students to develop and practice visual and oral presentation skills suitable for academic conferences and industrial research venues. A first-place ($1000) and two runner-up ($500 each) cash prizes will be awarded.
Eligible projects must have been supported by SRC-URO program in spring 2010-spring 2011. All entrants must be undergraduates. Work done as part of a larger group or lab project is welcome, but the poster and presentation should focus specifically on the research work done by the participating SRC-URO student(s).
During judging, all students will be asked to give an oral presentation of 5-10 minutes duration about their work using their poster as their visual aid. Where a video, animation, or demonstration is helpful in explaining the work the student may also refer to supporting exhibits displayed on a computer, but the poster must capture the core of the work. Judges, who will be identified with name badges, may visit each poster individually or in groups, and poster presenters should be prepared to explain their work to passerby and other students as well as judges. If necessary, the judges may select a number of finalists and revisit their posters as a group near the end of the judging period.
The judging panel will include possibly Intel and SRC representatives and may include CMU faculty. The judges will be chosen after the registration deadline. All judges' decisions will be final.
The following judging criteria will be used:
- Quality, creativity, significance, and potential impact of the work (40%)
- Clarity of the objectives, and quality of visual presentation (30%)
- Clarity and quality of oral presentation and response to questions (30%)
A total of $2000 will be awarded to 3 projects:
First Prize: The winning project will be awarded $1000.
Runners-Up: Two runners-up will be awarded $500 each.
Statistics Competition
This competition is sponsored by the Department of Statistics. Its purpose is to encourage undergraduate projects and research in statistics, and to educate the CMU community about the wide range of opportunities in statistics.
The competition is open to any student or team of students who have completed a project under supervision or with guidance of a Statistics faculty member. At least half the members of the team must be enrolled in an undergraduate program in the spring semester of 2011, not necessarily at Carnegie Mellon University. A panel of judges will rate the projects according to the following criteria:
-quality of abstract
-clarity of objective
-organization of thoughts
-general quality of work
-significance of work
-oral presentation skills
-visual presentation quality
-appropriate use of statistical methods
-responses to questions
The first place winner or team will receive $500. Additional prizes may be awarded.
Winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Award
$350 for a student project that exemplifies or explores the zone between art, technology, science and society: and embodies the mission of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry which is to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, science technology and the humanities and impact local and global communities.
The project should be directed by an artist or by a team that includes an artist.
The project should have a public component, that communicates with a community.
It's manifestation should reach a public or community audience.
It should contain or be influenced by science.
Selection Criteria
Artistic strength
Interdisciplinary/Collective/collaboration in the project
Evidence of reaching a public audience and/or potential for artistic/cultural/social impact
Winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
Undergraduate Economics Program (UEP) Competition
A goal of the Undergraduate Economics Program is to encourage students to think creatively and bring together their formal training with their passions.
Eligibility: Open to any undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Economics or team of undergraduate students enrolled in an UEP course. Eligible prospects include students writing a senior thesis in Economics and projects developed in UEP courses (including independent study).
Students meeting the eligibility requirements must participate in the "Oral Presentations" category during Meeting of the Minds in order to be considered for the award. Participating in the "Poster Sessions" is not sufficient.
Judging is based on the following factors: a) the quality of the abstract; b) intellectual process and results described in the presentation; and c) presentation skills (including Q&A) during the Meeting of the Minds.
A panel of judges will rate the projects according to the AACU Inquiry Analysis Value Rubric and the AACU Oral Communication Value Rubric.
AACU Inquiry Analysis Value Rubric
Topic Selection: Identifies a creative, focused, and manageable topic that addressed potentially significant yet previously less-explored aspects of the topic.
Existing Knowledge, Research, and/or Views: Synthesizes in-depth information from relevant sources represrnting various points of view/approaches.
Design Process: All elements of the methodology or theoretical framework are skillfully developed.
Analysis: Organizes and synthesizes evidence to reveal insightful patterns, differences, or similarities related to focus.
Conclusion: States a conclusion that is a logical extrapolation from the inquiry findings.
Limitataion and Implications: Insightfully discusses in detail relevant and supported limitations and implications.
AACU Oral Communication Value Rubric
Organization: Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is clearly and consistently observable and is skillful and makes the content of the presentation cohesive.
Language: Language choices are imaginitive, memorable, and compelling, and enhance the effectiveness of the presentation. Language in presentation is appropriate to audience.
Delivery: Delivery techniques (posture, gesture, eye contact, and vocal expressiveness) make the presentation compelling, and speaker appears polished and confident.
Supporting Material: A variety of types of supporting materials (explanations, examples, illustrations, statistics, anaologies, quotations from relevant authorities) make appropriate reference to information or analysis that significantly supports the presentation or establishes the presenter's cerdibility/authority on the topic.
Central Message: Central message is compelling (precisely states, appropriately repeated, memorable, and strongly supported.)
The winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony in McConomy Auditorium at 5 p.m.
Undergraduate Environmental Research Award
All Undergraduate Research Symposium participants undertaking projects with a strong environmental component are eligible to enter the competition for the Undergraduate Environmental Research Award. This award is sponsored by the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research and the Green Design Initiative. To compete for this award, you must check the appropriate box on the registration form. You may apply for this award in addition to applying for other awards such as the CIT Honors Poster Competition, Sigma Xi Poster competition etc.
A panel of judges will rate your poster or presentation using the following criteria:
-Significance of project with respect to improving or protecting the environment (25% of points)
-Abstract quality (15%)
-Clarity of Objective (15%)
-General quality of Work (15%)
-Quality of Poster or Presentation (15%)
-Response to Questions (15%)
The award winner will receive a cash prize of $200. The winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
Yahoo! Undergraduate Research Awards
Yahoo! will be looking for interesting and creative projects in the area of mobile computing/applications and use of location awareness and Web-accessed local information.
Three awards (a finalist of $500, and two runners-up of $250 each) will be announced at the Awards Ceremony at 5pm in McConomy Auditorium.
