University of Texas at San Antonio students use Designcenter X and Immersive Designer to win global engineering and sustainability competition | 2nd annual Sony and Siemens Immersive Design Challenge

Siemens and Sony bring the Immersive Design Challenge back for a second year, challenging students worldwide to make a product or process more sustainable with Immersive Engineering.

What is the Siemens Immersive Design Challenge?

The 2026 Immersive Design Challenge invited higher-education students to learn about sustainable design, make an impact with their ideas, develop their technical and durable skills and earn industry-recognized credentials to support their pathway to employment. The challenge included three rounds. In round one, teams explained their idea in a written submission. In round two, students made a prototype of their design in Designcenter X Academic Edition software accompanied with a video about their idea. Students could also use other Siemens software such as EDA software or Simcenter simulation software. In the final round, finalist teams were trained by Siemens Immersive Engineering experts to hone their idea with the Sony XR head-mounted display and Designcenter Immersive Designer software in Designcenter X. Then, each finalist showcased their work at Siemens Realize LIVE conferences in Detroit, Michigan or Amsterdam, Netherlands.

What is Immersive Engineering?

Immersive Engineering speaks to the use of extended reality (XR) immersive technologies—such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR)—in engineering practices. Sony and Siemens help you to combine the real and digital worlds with the integration of hardware and software for immersive visualization, design and collaboration.

Students ideate on how to make a product more sustainable with Immersive Engineering

The 2026 Immersive Design Challenge launched in October 2025, giving teams adequate time to form teams and come up with their ideas before the first deadline. In the beginning of February 2026, 2,200+ learners across 220 teams from 388 universities from 54 countries submitted their ideas for a chance to move on the second round.

Engineering and design students use Designcenter X Academic Edition software to bring sustainable ideas to life

A panel of Siemens experts evaluated the round one submissions, with a result of 54 teams across 44 universities selected for round two. Once round two teams were notified of their advancement, they were assigned a Siemens mentor to work with and a free Designcenter X Academic Edition license. Over the following two months, teams worked to prototype their idea using Siemens software and prepare a video introducing their team and describing their idea.

Throughout round two, students also optionally participated in digital “Tech Treks,” working with EDA electronics systems software (Xpedition Standard) and Simcenter simulation software (Simcenter 3D Student Edition). Each Tech Trek crowned team winners and individual winners. Additionally, many students took the round two time to take the Siemens Expedite – Skills for Industry course to receive an industry-recognized microcredential. With all the opportunities embedded into the challenge, many students came away with not only hands-on experience in industry-grade software, but digital badges to prove it for being round two participants, Tech Trek participants and winners and microcredential recipients.

Designcenter X Academic Edition licenses were provided to the round 2 students in order to give them premium, industry-grade software. Designcenter X Academic Edition includes premium features from Designcenter X and NX manufacturing software, plus value-based licensing tokens to access add-on modules not included in the core seat license. With Designcenter X, students were able to create their ideas with advanced tools, using simulation, AI, immersive visualization, sustainability analysis features and more.

Designcenter X Academic Edition enabled us to provide students around the world with access to industry-grade engineering software as part of the hybrid Siemens Immersive Design Challenge. Through cloud-based licensing, 240+ students across 54 teams in 13 countries were able to quickly access advanced Designcenter X capabilities without the complexity typically associated with large-scale software deployment.

The platform significantly reduced the IT overhead for both Siemens and participating universities, removing the need to configure individual workstations or burden the institutional IT teams. Using the Siemens Xcelerator Admin Console, student accounts could be provisioned simply by uploading their agreed email addresses, allowing participants to access the software within minutes.

Radu Jlobnitchi, Head of Innovation, The Global Learning Expedition

Top teams in the Immersive Design Challenge attend global digital transformation conferences

After reviewing the round two submissions, three teams from the USA, UK and Mexico were selected to be finalistsin the 2026 Immersive Design Challenge. Two teams were also awarded “Best Video” and “Student Ambassadors Choice Video Award”: Team Immersive Panthers from the Graz University of Technology, Austria and Team ALBATROSS from the Kalaignarkarunanidhi Institute of Technology (KIT), India. Check out the challenge website to learn about these teams’ ideas and watch the choice awards’ and finalists’ videos.

As a perk of being finalists, Siemens sent the top three teams to Siemens Realize LIVE conferences in Detroit, Michigan and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Team 210 Robotics from The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA attended the US conference while Team Bath Hydrobotics from the University of Bath, UK and Team Perico from the Higher Technological Institute of Ciudad Serdán, Mexico attended the EMEA conference. At Realize LIVE, the students got to interact with industry engineers and leaders, Siemens experts and peers. They got hands-on experience in a workshop with the Sony XR head-mounted display and Designcenter Immersive Designer software, presented their project on stage for Siemens and industry customers and had a curated program that maximized their learning and networking opportunities.

Team 210 Robotics from the University of Texas at San Antonio stand out in the global Siemens Immersive Design Challenge

Over 200 students, educators, industry leaders, Siemens employees and challenge participants joined the Global Online Final virtually on July 10. During the final, the three finalist teams presented their project ideas to the judging panel “jury” made up of five Siemens and industry experts. The jury deliberated and voted for the winner in real-time, with Team 210 Robotics crowned the winner.

Team 210 Robotics proposed how we can use Immersive Engineering to make 3D print farms more sustainable with RoboRowdy. RoboRowdy is “an autonomous robotic solution that automates part removal, build-plate cleaning, and print restarts for mid to large-scale 3D print farms by removing human intervention, improving operational efficiency, reducing errors, and minimizing downtime. This increases throughput and paves the way for advancements in additive manufacturing.”

As winners, each team member received a digital badge credential to showcase their win and an invitation to a virtual tour with long-term Siemens partner Oracle Red Bull Racing. Plus, their school, the University of Texas at San Antonio received a Sony XR head-mounted display and a 1-year license of Designcenter X Academic Edition to further their innovation in Immersive Engineering.

Want to learn more about academic opportunities from Siemens?

Stay in touch for information on next year’s Immersive Design Challenge on the challenge website and tune in the Designcenter Student Day 2026 webinar (registration coming soon) for the launch of the challenge.

The Designcenter academic program runs multiple activities, webinars and challenges each year, and software is always available through the Designcenter Student Edition (for individual learners) and the Designcenter X Academic Edition (for institutions). Check out our student and educator web pages for more information on our academic resources.