The Rick Merluzzi Aluminum Extrusion Design Competition strives to challenge and empower the next generation of designers to think about how aluminum extrusions can shape a better, more sustainable world. The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) and its educational and research organization, the ET Foundation, are inviting designers and engineers from around the world to share their vision for the future using aluminum extrusions.
Winning designs will be displayed at the aluminum extrusion industry’s most prestigious industry technical event – the Fourteenth International Aluminum Extrusion Technology Seminar and Exposition – ET ’27. This event covers nearly all aspects of aluminum extrusion technology, including process, alloys, equipment, die design, applications and more.
Entry Deadline: March 22, 2027
Professional Entries
Individual designers and companies are eligible to enter the ET Foundation Design Competition. Aluminum extruders and their customers are encouraged to team up to enter their extrusion design in the competition.
For the Professional category, one Grand Prize of $3,500 to be awarded across all categories and classes, along with $2,500 First Place awards for the best aluminum extrusion design in each of the four categories: Architectural/Structural, Transportation, Engineered/Industrial Products, and Alternative Energy.
Architectural/Structural
Versatile aluminum extruders enable sophisticated and expressive design features and labor-saving multi-functionality to be readily incorporated into building components, including:
- Modular building systems
- Façades, curtainwall
- Shading, ventilation and lighting louvers
- Skylights, entryways, window and doors
- Office component systems
- Walkways, bridges, decking and much more
Transportation
Design engineers focused on lightweighting, durability and strength increasingly are turning to aluminum extrusions to improve fuel economy, crash performance and load-carrying capacity for:
- Automotive
- Rail and mass transit
- Aerospace
- Marine
- Truck/trailer and recreational vehicles
- Space vehicles
Engineered/Industrial Products
Aluminum extrusions are used in a variety of consumer and industrial components due to aluminum’s many material and process advantages. This category may include:
- Sporting and recreational equipment
- Machine components and controls
- Heatsinks and insulating components
- Lighting and lighting components
- Electrical and communications components
- Appliances and more
Alternative Energy
Aluminum extrusions play a key role in both alternative and conventional energy generation and power distribution systems, including:
- Solar power systems/photovoltaics (PV)
- Building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) modules
- Wind power and turbines
- Hydro-electric power and geothermal energy
Student Entries
High school, undergraduate, graduate, trade and vocational/technical and design school students are eligible to enter. Students must be enrolled at an accredited school. Individual and team submissions are accepted. Each student on the team must complete, sign and date, and submit an official entry form with their submission.
Students have a unique and clear way of looking at the world, which makes them well qualified to offer creative solutions to design challenges. The AEC encourages students to think beyond the ordinary to create solutions and discover new, innovative and resourceful ways to use extruded aluminum. Eligibility tips are available on the AEC website.
Winning entries will be those that best demonstrate the benefits of aluminum extrusions — whether by inventing a new product or improving an existing one — by achieving the following objectives:
- Creativity: innovative design, new application capability, methods to meet a new design challenge.
- Practicality: ease of fabrication and assembly, cost-effectiveness, use of extruded aluminum over other materials or processes, will a typical size extrusion press be able to produce your shape? Refer to the Design Tips section for more information.
- Product/Process Improvement: customization or improvement of extrusion processes, close tolerances, takes full advantage of extrusion capabilities to improve a product.
- Market Potential: design/product marketability and likelihood of market success.
Scholarships totaling $15,500 will be presented as cash awards to the best student designs submitted. Winning entries will be awarded in the following amounts:
- First Place: $5,000
- Second Place: $4,000
- Third Place: $3,000
In addition, a $3,500 Student Scholarship Award is available to the student design that best addresses societal and/or environmental challenges or concerns, in addition to the four basic Design Competition judging criteria. The entry must be a viable, extrusion-based product that meets the sustainability demands for the environment while contributing to the quality of life for the intended users. Often a student’s own situation or experiences contribute to product design ideas for this category. Past entries for the Sustainable Design Challenge Award have included:
- Soil Erosion Control System
- Water Purification System
- Refugee or Temporary Housing
- Portable Medical Isolation Unit
- Portable Cart/Bed for Refugees
- Space-Saving Greenhouse
- Hydroponic Gardening System
