World-conquering commercial soft drink brands like Mountain Dew don't typically inspire art, but for two Penn State students, that's just what happened.

Brett Bielewicz (sophomore-elementary education) and Andrew Lyons (sophomore-landscape architecture) recently competed in the Penn State pool of a national contest sponsored by Mountain Dew.

Students from 50 participating schools entered the competition by making art, gear or games and technology that incorporate the colors, logo, boxes or cans of the citrus-flavored drink.

With a $5,000 prize for the top choices in the country, hundreds of entries were considered in the competition, including some straight out of Happy Valley.

Bielewicz is featured on the Dew D.I.Y. Web site as the second-place winner in the gear category.

He heard about the competition through his roommate, Anthony Picciuto (sophomore-finance), a Mountain Dew Brand Ambassador on campus who helped out with the competition.

"We had a bunch of Mountain Dew products here, and we just started doing crazy stuff with it," Bielewicz said.

Lyons competed in the art category and submitted a hand-painted poster that combines the Penn State and Mountain Dew logos. After the votes were tallied, Lyons got the call that he had won the best art category on campus. He soon found himself $250 richer.

"Because of my studio class, I had already dealt with hands-on projects," Lyons said, "so that definitely helped with the actual process of making the banner."

Using a 9-x-5 banner as his clean slate, Lyons chose to paint his poster instead of creating a computer-generated piece, which he said was common in the competition.

"I thought [the poster] was awesome," Picciuto said. "When he showed it to me, I was very impressed."

Bielewicz worked a bit with his roommates on his award-winning pair of Mountain Dew flip-flops.

"We used the [Mountain Dew] case it came in," he said. "I cut it out and used some green tape to keep it on your feet."

Though Lyons worked on the poster alone, he gave credit to his friends for their support -- especially his roommates.

"I guess you could say my roommates helped just by being patient," he said. "I took up the entire living room floor for a week."

Mike Kearney (sophomore-finance), one of Lyons's roommates, was excited Lyons entered the competition.

"He was always really good at art," he said. "I had a good feeling about it -- especially knowing he could win the money."

After the projects were complete, voting began online at the Mountain Dew D.I.Y. Web site, www.dewdiy.com, and those with the top votes from Penn State were showcased at the Delta Sigma Phi house, 508 Locust Lane, on Dec. 3.

Lyons reached out to others for voting, setting up a Facebook group to rally support. Unfortunately, Lyons wasn't a finalist in the competition among other colleges.

"To be honest, I wasn't all that upset," Lyons said. "I realized I was going up against the top entries from 50 schools, and that's kind of tough to place in the top three."

Bielewicz, on the other hand, basked in the success of his flip-flops with a $500 prize.

"I'm glad I did it ... It was fun," he said. "I just did it to help my roommate out, then it turned out to help me out at the end."