Discover MFG! And the winners are...
By Jared Wittekind, Makerspace Director
With October comes spooky decorations, fall weather, pumpkin spice everything, and (less well known) manufacturing month. Part of our mission at BB2C is to get people, particularly students, as excited about the continually expanding manufacturing job opportunities as they are about all the other festivities that come around this time of year.
We teamed up with Appalachian Ohio Manufacturers Coalition, several local schools, and local manufacturers to create an opportunity for some of the brightest young minds in the Mid-Ohio Valley together. Not only were students able to network and learn about manufacturing careers, they were also able to show off their skills and compete for some fantastic prizes.
Since the biggest limiting factor to all events this year has been COVID-19, we decided to host a 3D design contest in which each contestant would be tasked with designing a part that could help combat the spread of the virus. Our Makerspace had fielded several requests for free-standing plastic barriers and recognized the need for a way to easily and quickly join plexiglass panels together. We decided this was the perfect task for our competition and that students should not only be judged on the quality of their designs but by the ease in which these parts could be manufactured.
On the first day of the event, the students received a crash course in 3D design, were introduced to the rules of the contest, and given just a few days to come up with their designs. Additionally, the students got to speak with expert manufacturers. Their designs were then 3D printed and reviewed with the students in-person with these same experts the following week.
The results were nothing short of amazing. Every student’s design could have easily been used in the field which made it very difficult to choose the top 3 winners. In the end, Will Randall, Reed Collins, and Matthew Rauch walked away with $200 cash, a new 3D printer, and an Oculus virtual reality headset.