The Society of Plastic Engineers is extending the deadline for nominations in its second annual Plastics for Life global parts competition.
Because eligible parts must have won a category or a competition at an SPE topical conference or mini-conference in the last 12 months, extending the deadline from Jan. 30 to Feb. 13 will allow teams of winning parts from SPE conferences in early 2015 to enter this year's competition, rather than wait until 2016, the group said in a Jan. 21 news release.
As requested by the competition's judges, another change has been made, allowing the nominations to be previewed online in February with final balloting taking place on March 23 — after judges have had the opportunity to see and touch physical parts during a walkthrough on the first day of SPE's Annual Technical Conference, ANTEC 2015. ANTEC is being held concurrently with NPE 2015 March 23-25 in Orlando.
“As our competition enters its second year, interest is building and we've been asked to make a few rule changes that would enable us to pick up extra nominations,” said Jon Ratzlaff, technical services manager, Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., who created the parts competition during his term as 2013-2014 SPE president.
“Since one of our goals for this competition is to highlight the incredible versatility of plastic materials in numerous markets and show how plastics truly enhance life on this planet, there was no question that we needed to be flexible,” he said in a statement. “Hopefully the teams that are already hard at work on their forms will appreciate that they just got a two-week extension.”
Nominations are now due by Feb. 13 and can be made by contacting Barbara Spain [email protected] or +1 508.338.2646. Additional information can be found at www.antec.ws.
Winners will be chosen in four categories: Protecting Life (preservation, safety, containment, protection); Quality of Life (mobility, communication, luxury/comfort, recreation, entertainment); Improving Life (education, energy, opportunity, health); and Sustaining Life (environmental, conservation, sustainability, recycling, reduction). In addition, there will be a grand award and a people's choice award.