Winners of SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition Picked

SME and Stratasys have announced the winners of their cosponsored 2022 Additive Manufacturing Competition, conducted as part of the 58th annual SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference, held in Atlanta. The competition was supported this year by partners nTopology Inc. and Allegheny Education Systems.

Three high school and three college teams received top honors in the additive manufacturing competition, created in 2013 by SME and Stratasys. The contest is intended to educate high school and postsecondary students about additive manufacturing technologies and its design and to provide them with real-world, hands-on experience that they can apply to a commercial product.

In addition to the additive manufacturing competition, all 70 students participated in a certification. The Additive Manufacturing Fundamentals Certification Exam was administered to all students free of charge and was included as a percentage of the total points for each competing team. This exam is the first and only certification validating an individual’s knowledge of industry standard concepts in additive manufacturing, based on revisions to the Additive Manufacturing Body of Knowledge by the Additive Manufacturing Leadership Initiative (AMLI) in 2016.

Despite the challenging nature of this portion of the competition, 23 students of the 70 in attendance passed the Additive Manufacturing Fundamentals Certification Exam, and 12 students missed by only 1 point. This portion of the competition displayed the depth of knowledge that these students have (and continue to develop) for additive manufacturing.

“It’s really important for Stratasys to attend challenges like SkillsUSA mainly because the young kids that attend are going to be the kids in 5 to 10 years who come work at Stratasys,” says Thomas Whiting, application engineer at Stratasys. “The more we can do now to prepare them, the better off they’ll be—and we as a manufacturer will be—in the future.”

Both levels of the winning teams received gold, silver and bronze medals from SkillsUSA, as well as scholarships of $1,500, $1,000 and $500, respectively, from the SMEEducation Foundation. Both levels also received a one-year subscription for Tooling U-SME classes and a one-year SMEmembership, plus post-secondary winners received RAPID + TCT full-conference conference passes. Gold-medal-winning teams in both categories won a professional-grade Sketch 3D printer as well.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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