APMM Student Model Making Competition -
Online and On-Target in 2021  

SUBMITTED BY WILL STRANGE, ARTS UNIVERSITY BOURNEMOUTH 

The APMM is actively researching, exploring, and sometimes puzzling with the world of social media as a way to increase engagement with our members and the world. Our recent virtual conference was a big success when we used a combination of Zoom meetings and YouTube premieres to replace the familiar, 'pre-COVID-19' in-person event. Like the virtual conference, this competition is a different kind of event, and that makes it easier to engage and participate - even for those who aren't comfortable yet with the world of likes, follows and hashtags! 

In 2020, we ran our popular Student Model Making Competition online for the first time. You can read about the winners and other details in the Autumn 2020 ENL. Using Instagram as a platform for sharing work and connecting students to the APMM and to professional modelmakers, we adopted the hashtag #APMMawards to promote the event.

The results were far beyond what we ever expected! We were used to a couple of dozen entries at the busy 'real world' APMM conference event… but the Instagram competition attracted 171 entries from 12 different institutions in 4 countries!

Instagram proved to be a great choice for the competition to make the move online. The visual nature of the platform put the student’s work in the spotlight, and the ability to add a description gave judges information about the processes used in its making. Students add '#APMMawards' to their Instagram posts so we know they've entered and  '@...'  their institutions to prove eligibility, and to enable some extra promotion.

The connections made possible by our members also 'tagging' (@modelmakersorg) and 'hashtags' (#APMMawards) help to build a community online, and to promote our organization. The links between different accounts that are made when we tag each other and use the same hashtags make us much more visible online. When someone searches for professional model making on social media they are more likely to be connected to the APMM now that we are mentioned so many more times. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to disrupt the way that students usually promote themselves upon graduation, we are running this competition online again in 2021.  At the time of this writing the competition is open to entries from any students of programs that have a focus on model making. Just like in 2020, our Instagram posts give instructions about how to enter, and advice on how to impress the judges and show their work at its best. 

Unlike the first running of the contest online, we now have an 'archive' of previous entries ready-made and easy to find online. Searching for #APMMawards on Instagram will show you all of the entries so far, all of last year’s entries, and the posts that we have made to promote the event. This makes it far easier to get a good idea of how to promote work well online.

At a recent 'Meet Up' event we discussed the competition and caught up with the 2020 winners. Chris Bradbury (@chris.bradbury_modelmaker), of Arts University Bournemouth (@aubmodelmaking), won first place in 2020, and we learned that he now works at Aardman Animation making stop motion puppets. Second place winner in 2020, Tom Beardwell (@tom_beardwell) is completing his final year of study at University of Hertfordshire (@hertsmodeldesign) this year. Yudit Lee (@yudit_design_model) was third place winner in 2020, and she has been applying her model designing skills to a master’s program in Design at AUB (@aub.designers).

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