For Design Day, four teams and four individuals are chosen to present their design via a poster presentation. From this final group, two teams of two, and two individuals will be chosen to compete in the national AIChE competition in the fall. Since 1968, about half of the students whose reports rated first or second at MSU also finished among the top six nationally.
In 2018, MSU students won two of the three national awards in the Individual Solution category of AIChE’s Student Design Competition. Evan Draplin won Second Place, and James Wortman won Third Place for their designs of a manufacturing facility for dimethyl ether, a chemical feedstock that shows promise as an alternative fuel. In addition to this national award, James Wortman also received an MSU Board of Trustees’ Award for having the highest scholastic average (4.0 GPA) upon graduation.