2021 COMPETITION PLAN
As the world embraces the new reality of the COVID-19 into 2021, SAE International wants to ensure you that we are moving forward with plans to allow continued student engagement in a controlled manner to meet all the necessary precautions of the pandemic and still deliver on strong educational experiences for your teams in 2021.
We know that planning for a typical competition year is not an option based on the following:
- Academia landscape is reporting over 50% universities resuming the fall semester operating either 100% virtual or with some sort of hybrid model. Spring semesters are either reported as going virtual or TBD.
- 85% of our teams reported seeing their project funding either secured and now in jeopardy or not being secured.
- 71 % of the teams have restrictions on budget and lab space set by the university
- 45% of our teams may be unable to participate onsite in the spring/summer due to being located outside of the United States border.
- 28% of teams already are aware of a travel ban policy implemented at their university effective until end of Spring 2021 semester.
- Many sponsors and volunteers’ employers still have a travel restriction ban in place.
- Local and State guidelines on operating large group gatherings vary in sizes across the country and within the state itself. Currently the largest reported flat number is 250; some venues offer a percentage such as 25% of max capacity or whatever is the smallest number.
Then we must consider items like having to social distance, requiring personal protection equipment, creating plans for contact tracing, temperature checks, COVID-19 safety protocols for onsite operations, etc.
All of that said, we are working on a model to deliver both static and dynamic events at most 2021 competitions!
How will SAE International deliver a competition season for both static and dynamic engagement? Find out the details in the 2021 CDS Competition Plan document available under Series Resources today!
