You Could Win a Cash Award by Entering Your Paper in the Synopsys Student Optical Design Competition – Entering is Easy!

Every year we receive many great entries to the Robert S. Hilbert Student Design Competition. This annual competition celebrates exceptional optical design research projects by college students in North America who use Synopsys’ optical software solutions. The competition is open to students working toward a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate degree.

For the 2020 competition, students from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, the University of Arizona, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of Rochester received awards for their submissions, using CODE V, LightTools, and LucidShape software.

“The Robert S. Hilbert Student Design Competition is an exciting way to show off my work to a technical audience,” said Nick Takaki, one of our winners who was a Ph.D. candidate at the time he submitted his paper. “It’s easy, fun, and I highly recommend that anyone thinking of entering give it a shot!”  Nick received an award for his project titled, “Off-Axis Conics as Base Surfaces for Freeform Optics Enable Null Testability” using CODE V, and has since then graduated with a doctorate from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester.

If you are a student interested in submitting an entry, here are a few hints to consider:

• First, make sure your entry conforms to the competition’s submission requirements. For example, project reports or summaries should be no longer than 10 pages.
• Successful entries demonstrate:
  • A clearly communicated understanding of the project’s or assignment’s purpose and relevant technical background
  • An understanding of how Synopsys software can be used to design the optical system, and presentation of your project’s process and outcome (i.e., charts and figures)
  • The use of software for novel applications is a plus!
• Your degree level is considered. So whether you are brand new to optics, or are getting ready to graduate with a PhD, entries will be gauged among other submissions of a similar educational level.

It is always fantastic to see the types of optical systems and solutions that students are solving. Good luck to all entrants this year, and on the completion of your studies the rest of the semester!

Related blog article on the 2020 winners: https://blogs.synopsys.com/optical-solutions/2020/08/24/synopsys-announces-2020-robert-s-hilbert-memorial-optical-design-competition-results/