Network Design

Last update: February 21, 2024 - Added Generative AI statement

Fast and reliable data networks are the lifeblood of modern business, and companies pay big bucks for engineers that can design and maintain robust networks. Prove that you have what it takes to tackle and solve thorny enterprise networking challenges by delivering a design that can accommodate a complex set of communication needs.

The USITCC network design contest is constructed to challenge participants on many levels. Teams will create a proposal for a network design given the problem statement scenario. Elements will include LAN design, WAN connectivity, network components, protocols used, security issues, network architecture and a budget.

Team Composition

Teams may be made up of 1-2 people.

Schedule

Friday, April 5, 2024 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Skills and Resources

Successful teams will have a good understanding of internetworked systems, critical thinking and evaluation skills for enterprise infrastructure design, the ability to construct a budget of all the items and services necessary to solve the problem, and the ability to create professional quality documentation that meets problem statement requirements for stated audience.

No specific software packages are required for the competition, however professional presentation of your design is key. To this end, diagramming tools such as Visio, Lucid Chart or yEd, software to generate Microsoft Word or PDF documents, and an Internet browser for looking up technical specs and pricing will be useful. Final documents much be submitted as a file that can be read using Microsoft Word 2003 or later, or as a PDF.

Protocol

Teams will be given the problem statement at the beginning of the contest time.  Time will be allowed to read the problem statement and ask any questions in a common session.  Once the question & answer time has closed, no further questions will be answered.  Each team will submit their solution for judging prior to the contest closing time, at which point no further submissions will be accepted.

Statement Regarding use of Generative AI

We—the USITCC Conference Committee and the Foundation for Information Technology Education (FITE)—recognize the impressive growth, application, and overall utility of AI in shortening the time to completion of projects both professionally and academically. The use of Generative has increased dramatically in recent years. Students, employees, and organizations are leveraging tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, DALL-E, Midjourney, and DeepMind to supplement their own skillsets and produce greater volumes of work.

With that said, we and our cooperative organizations jointly decided to prohibit/ban the use of Generative AI from the 2024 USITCC competition.

The competitions at USITCC are primarily focused on and tailored to the knowledge bases and skillsets of undergraduate students from 2 & 4-year schools. The purpose of these competitions is to gauge, test, and present appropriate challenges for this level of student understanding and the competitions also allow students to detect their own deficiencies and strengths. Students will need to possess a solid understanding of the fields they are competing in on their own merits to truly discover where their strengths and weaknesses lie, such that they may better develop themselves for the professional world in which they are seeking careers.

Therefore, usage of Generative AI to assist in the answering, production, and development of student submissions is prohibited from the competition overall. Violation of this ban may result in the forfeiture of the competitor in that competition. We reserve the right to examine competition related network traffic data during this event. Certain web domain access may be blocked as well.

Previous Problem Statements

2023 USITCC Network Design

2022 Regional Competition Network Design

2019 USITCC Network Design

2018 USITCC Network Design

Return to the competitions overview page.