The winning entries of the 26th-annual Michelin Challenge Design competition for the College for Creative Studies (CCS) have been announced. The top students were honored at a recent reception held at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education in Detroit.
Namsuk Lee from South Korea was judged the Michelin-CCS individual winner; second place went to Ledd Lemmenes, from Waupun, Wisconsin; and Graham Wright, from Appleton, Wisconsin took third.
The Michelin-CCS winning team comprised Hey-Min Kim, Jeongyoo Kim and Namsuk Lee, all from South Korea.
"Passion is a key part of innovation and design," said Thom Roach, vice president of original equipment marketing, Michelin North and South America. "The CCS students and teams showed great creativity and focus in their works. We were all impressed by the quality of the entries and the willingness of the CCS instructors and students to take risks and communicate passion through their designs."
Winning CCS students received trophies, scholarships and an invitation to display their designs in the Michelin Challenge Design exhibit at the 2015 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). Michelin also presented a $25,000 donation to support the school's transportation design program, which helps provide financial aid to the CCS students.
Thirteen students entered this year's challenge, which was based on the global Michelin Challenge Design theme of Drive Your Passion: Engaging Senses, Soul and Emotion. The goal was to design vehicles that would facilitate pure driving pleasure on one of the world's iconic roads. Designs offered unique features to engage senses, soul and emotion - specific to the chosen road.
Working in teams of three, students were responsible for designing a shared platform. From this platform, each student developed a vehicle uniquely suited to engage the driver's senses and emotions on their chosen road.
The vehicle types were left to individual students, but students were required to explain the target vehicle owner, how their design embodies the performance that is vital to fully experience the character of the chosen road or environment, and describe the adventure on the chosen road that the vehicle will be used. Students were also asked to create a tire/wheel assembly with a unique design and functional capabilities best suited for the application.
Design judges for this year's event were strategic design manager at Cadillac, Jeff Nield; design manager for global exhibits and experiences at GM, Jeff Mylenek; Nicho Vardis, design manager for Chrysler's SRT Brand; and Paul Grosskopf, vice president of research and development for Michelin North America.
The winning CCS students' work will join 15 designs representing nine countries selected in the global Michelin Challenge Design competition at NAIAS.
