Student Design Competitions

General Plastics help universities with innovative projects through foam donation program

Our General Plastics Foam Donation Program partners with universities to provide tooling and modeling foam to undergraduate student teams. Future engineers and designers use our high-strength, low-weight polyurethane foam material to build prototype or model projects they enter into primarily engineering competitions. The LAST-A-FOAM^®tooling boards used most by students are our 4500 Tooling Board Series, 7100 Multi-Use Core and Modeling Board Series, and 3700 Performance Core Series.

Many of these innovative student projects involve designing and building prototype vehicles. Examples include the solar-powered car entered by North Dakota State University in the American Solar Challenge, and the Eco Illini Supermileage Vehicle entered by the University of Illinois team, which explored automotive sustainability. A team from Texas A&M used its foam donation to build a human-powered submarine.

During 2011 and 2012, the U.S. universities taking advantage of our donated materials included Auburn, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Northwestern, Texas Tech, Missouri University of Science and Technology, San Jose State, the University Of Illinois School Of Art and Design, and the University of Washington.