Autodesk University 2006 was an unqualified success as thousands of Autodesk product users came together to learn and to share, to meet old friends and make new ones, and to generally leave the event more empowered than they were when they arrived.

And, crammed in amongst the learning, was a lot of fun. Contests galore and some great prizes made AU 2006 an event to remember. Here is a look at some of the highlights.

AUGI Top DAUG
Congratulations to Lee Ambrosius, who won the title "AUGI Top DAUG 2006" with the highest score in the two-part Top DAUG competition. Contest participants first competed in a multiple-choice, computer-based test. The top winners from that competition went on to the finals, the drawing component, where accuracy and speed are vital. Our thanks to AUGI Top DAUG sponsor HP for providing the great prizes and to CADLearning by 4D Technologies, which provided the software to facilitate the AUGI Top DAUG contest.

The Top DAUG Competition begins! Here, participants compete in the multiple-choice portion.

Lee Ambrosius, 2006 AUGI Top DAUG (right), with Tom Salomone of Hewlett Packard, principal sponsor of the Top DAUG competition.

(from left): Chris Lindner, AUGI Board Member and 2002 AUGI Top DAUG; Lee Ambrosius, this year's winner; Craig Black and KaDe King, second- and third-place contestants.

Birds of a Feather Luncheon
As part of this year’s AU Birds of a Feather Luncheon on Thursday, tablemates participated in the AUGI Community Challenge. Teams collaborated on a series of tough questions, designed to stump even the most seasoned and knowledgeable AUGI member. Each member of winning tables received a prize.

These Grand Prize winners received free full admission plus accommodations to Autodesk University 2007.

Kurt Aper	William Morrow
Bob Blatchford	Marion Rodriguez
Philip Ferguson	Kim Smith
David Hernandez	Attilio Treglia
Patrick Ilsley	Robert Wagner

These second place winners received free admission to an AUGI CAD Camp.

Karen Abel-Co	Steve Hibbard
Sheila Bjerreskov	Dan Johnson
Mary Broemel	Anthony Miskinis
Ori Guaes	Renata Miskinis
Carole Hibbard	Christopher Pyron

Third place winners received an AUGI MP3 player. They are:

Ian Busby
Brad DeAbrey
Dale Francis
Peter Germs
Martin Neault

These fourth place winners received an executive pen and business card holder.

Susan Halla-Borrelli
Keith Holloway
Michael Jones
Peter Wolf

Congratulations to all of the Birds of a Feather winners!

International Reception
AUGI hosted an International Reception Wednesday night for AU attendees from all over the world. The evening provided a warm welcome for those attendees who traveled from around the world and included a keynote from Rich Uphus, AUGI Executive Director.

The evening commenced with guests marking their home countries on a map, which quickly filled up. Home countries included, among others, Jamaica, Japan, Australia, the UK, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Kuwait, and more.

Building on the theme of strength through teamwork, each table competed in a puzzle game. The winning table received AUGI fleece jackets.

Guests at the International Reception employ teamwork to complete a puzzle and score an AUGI jacket!

AUGI Lucky Seven
This year's Exhibit Hall game was AUGI Lucky Seven. To play, attendees simply collected seven stamps on their game cards from seven different participating exhibitor booths. A drawing was held to determine these winners, who were awarded casino-themed prizes.

Dave Bittner
Howard Hester
Juan Loyda
Teena Mahoney
Paul Staritz
Darrell Treat
Nestor Fernandez

But wait, there's more...
If anyone left AU 2006 without several prizes and giveaways, well, they just weren't trying hard enough. AUGI gave away literally hundreds of prizes—some were awarded to attendees simply for stopping by the AUGI booth!

Winners of the AUGI Daily Drawing were awarded a 3Dconnexion SpacePilot navigation device or a Logitech Z640 Speaker System. Those lucky attendees are:

Stephen Markle
Stephanie Emerick
Volker Cocco
Darrell Trent
Mike Quezada
Tera Schwartz
Jason Haagen

In addition, AUGIWorld magazine gave away 10 AUGI MP3 players to attendees whose numbers imprinted on their AUGIWorld magazine wrapper matched the winning numbers posted in the AUGI booth.

It's never too early to start thinking about next year! AU will return to Las Vegas in 2007. Hope to see you there!