Student Competitions

3 High School Teams Win 3D Printing Competition

• By Leila Meyer
• 07/07/16

Six teams of students from high schools and colleges around the United States won medals and other prizes in the second annual SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition at the 52nd annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference, which was held in Louisville, KY June 21-23.

Twenty-two teams competed in this year's competition, which was sponsored by SME and Stratasys. The competition was intended to help participants "better understand additive manufacturing applications" and "get hands-on experience using the latest 3D printing technology and software," according to a news release.

Students completed two design challenges and a written exam to evaluate their understanding of additive manufacturing technology. The design challenges involved designing and printing a trading pin and catapult according to contest specifications, which included 3D printing time, size and materials usage. Participants then tested their catapult designs for distance and accuracy and presented their findings and engineering notebooks to a panel of judges, which was made up of professionals in the additive manufacturing field. The judges selected three high school teams and three college teams to win gold, silver and bronze medals.

Winners of the SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing competition include:

• Gold medal winners from Payette River Technical Academy in Emmett, ID and Sheridan College in Sheridan, WY;
• Silver medal winners from Hastings High School in Hastings, NE and Calhoun Community College in Decatur, AL; and
• Bronze medal winners from Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough, MA and Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC.

Prizes for the winning teams included scholarships from the SME Education Foundation, a MakerBot Mini printer, 3D mouse and SolidWorks 3D CAD design software.