General Information
Purpose
The PA Media and Design Competition is an annual event that highlights Pennsylvania students’ application skills, creativity and knowledge. Students are able to unleash their creativity, learn how to convey information more dynamically, and enhance the learning process.
AI Disclaimer
To ensure that projects reflect students’ own creativity and effort, participants in the Pennsylvania Media and Design Competition must adhere to an 80% human, 20% AI rule. Students should document and clearly report how AI tools were utilized in their work to maintain transparency and align with competition guidelines.
Eligibility
Participation is open to any student enrolled:
- In grades 6 – 12
- In a public or private middle or high school
- In a state-approved home-school program
- Within the geographic boundaries served by a sponsoring intermediate unit
Participant selection process:
- Local competition and/or selection process– Local middle and high schools will be responsible for selecting the students who will advance to regionals.
- All projects must be new or significantly changed over previous year entries. The narrative description must describe the enhancements to a project that was previously entered.
- Regional competition– Each intermediate unit will designate the number of projects eligible for regionals.
- State competition – held annually in May at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA. There will be no entrance fee charged to either the school district or student to participate in the state competition.
Copyright Requirements
The PA Media and Design Competition, although educational, removes the student work from the classroom and therefore requires the student to get permission from the owner to use any copyrighted music, video, graphics, etc. Fair use does NOT apply. Remember to credit music or items that were created by yourself or friends as well.
Display boards or other items that are included with, but not part of, the project may not contain copyrighted material. Display boards are not judged for appearance, however, they will be inspected and can cause the project to be disqualified if copyrighted material is found.
The Copyright Signoff form, Project Narrative/Summary, and Photo Release form has been combined into one file for your convenience PA Media and Design Competition Participation Packet. This completed packet MUST accompany every project.
Judging
- Preliminary judging: a minimum of two judges will view the project to determine a group of finalists.
- Final judging: All judges will view each of the finalists projects and may require the students to answer questions.
- All judging rubrics are posted on this website.
- Judges may not have a direct association with the participants.
- Judges’ decisions are final.
Registration
- All participants must register online at https://mediadesigncompetition.org
- Registration for the regional competition must be completed and submitted by the date specified by the appropriate regional intermediate unit.
- Registrations for the state competition will be submitted by the intermediate unit.
- Students may participate individually or as a group. A student may submit an individual project and take part in a group project, however the projects cannot be in the same category. (This means a student can be involved in at most a total of two submissions in two different categories.)
- Groups will be limited to three students.
- Cash prizes awarded to a group project will be split a maximum of three ways.
- A faculty advisor/sponsor must be identified. The faculty advisor/sponsor will be responsible for accompanying students during the regional and state competitions.
- All communication will be provided through the faculty advisor/sponsor.
Logo winner
Sopheavatey Nouth and Everardo Sanchez
South Philadelphia High School
Logo winner
Faith Jones-Mcintyre and Taraji Robinson
Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy
Use the hashtag #pamediadesigncomp on all your social media posts 