Students must optimize a design of their choice, with a focus on reducing weight while maintaining structural integrity or improving efficiency, sustainability, or some other feature.

The contest is open to all students, regardless of their age or discipline. If you are under 18 years old, please have a trusted adult submit your project for you.

For most students, learning Inspire and submitting a valid entry takes less than a week.

Yes! The contest is free. Altair provides all the software and training required to participate. To compete, you only need a computer with internet access and a desire to learn and succeed.

We highly recommend using Inspire for the contest since it's an excellent choice for students and professionals alike.

Here's why:
•    Its modern, user-friendly GUI: Inspire is easy to learn and use right away.
•    It’s a versatile, multidisciplinary tool: With it, users can perform various simulations like structural analysis, topology optimization, motion dynamics, and additive or subtractive manufacturing.
•    Seamless compatibility: Inspire works well with major 3rd-party CAD software for smooth 3D geometry reuse.

However, if you prefer, you can also use another software from Altair's comprehensive suite of tools.

Both options are available, and there is no limit to the team size. However, prizes awarded are per submission, not per person.

Students must submit their Inspire model file and a video outlining the optimization process and what they learned.

• Student or team name
• Current university or institution
• Altair product(s) used
• Parameter(s) optimized
• Amount of improvement
• Lessons learned
• Visual/graphical representation of the results.
• The video must be less than five minutes long and feature no copyrighted material (e.g. music, images, video clips, etc.)

Students must submit their video (YouTube link or mp4-file) and solved Inspire models to Altair via the submission page.

Absolutely! You can submit your videos in any language you feel comfortable with. We encourage participants to express themselves in the language that best suits their needs and demonstrates their proficiency.

Students may provide a 90-second maximum creative presentation video promoting the value and excitement of topology optimization and lightweighting. This video must be posted on the students’ YouTube channel(s) and will be judged separately from the main submission.

No. Students can only submit one entry per monthly challenge. But you can submit a new (unique) project every month of the contest and get another chance to win each time.

You can visit the competitions forum here in the Altair Community and ask questions or get help regarding technical support, software usage, or training.

Absolutely! Students must agree to allow Altair to use their models and videos in promotional materials. We want to show off your amazing work to our global community.

Don't hesitate to also create a promotional video as a humblebrag, especially with prospective employers—it could be the perfect way to set yourself apart from other talented candidates vying for jobs.

The judging team made up of technical experts at Altair will be judging all submissions and all decisions are final.

The Global Grand Prize winner will be determined by a panel of industry experts from our industrial customer companies (judges TBD).

Judges will consider creativity, professionalism, innovation, feasibility, and video quality.

If enough students from your class participate your course professor can talk to Altair at altairuniversity@altair.com. We can help explain the learning and engineering skills gained, which may earn you credits in your university engineering course.

Absolutely! Educators can write to us or download the Inspire course material and training to create an exciting course curriculum around this contest.