The Assn. of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) honored the latest winners of its agricultural engineering student awards during special ceremonies at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers’ (ASABE) annual meeting in Montreal, Quebec, Canada (July 13-16).

The AEM Trophies Competition awards recognize ASABE university student branches with the most outstanding record of activities and achievements for the year. They are evaluated in areas including campus and community participation, organization and quality of meetings and programs.

The student branches help undergraduates become more knowledgeable about their chosen profession. AEM initiated the awards in the 1930s as part of its commitment to excellence in agricultural engineering education.

The 2014 AEM student award winners are:

• Large Student Engineering Branches (Group A – 33 or more students): First Place: Iowa State Univ.; Second Place: Texas A&M Univ.
• Smaller Student Engineering Branches (Group B – fewer than 33 students): First Place: Univ. of Georgia; Second Place: Univ. of Tennessee 

Tractor-safety logo design winner also announced

AEM hosted the 77th Annual AEM Student Awards luncheon at the ASABE meeting to announce the winners as well as provide them opportunities to network with equipment manufacturers and learn more about the off-road equipment manufacturing industry.

During the luncheon, ASABE announced the winner of its student-focused logo design contest promoting tractor seatbelt and ROPS use. The contest was unveiled at last year’s AEM student awards luncheon.

First-place logo contest winner is Nick Schrader from Iowa State Univ.  Second place went to Amelie Sirois Leclerc from McGill Univ. and third place went to Joel Parr from Iowa State Univ. The first-place as well as second- and third-place winners each received a cash prize.

The first-place winning logo will be part of a national ROPS promotion strategy for North America that encourages tractor operators to wear seatbelts, raise foldable Rollover Protective Structures (ROPS) and install ROPS on older tractors. When used with a seatbelt, ROPS are 99% effective in preventing injury or death in the event of an overturn, notes ASABE.

For more information on the AEM student awards, contact AEM’s Michael Weber (mweber@aem.org). For more information on ASABE and its activities, go online to www.asabe.org.