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2002 competition

Contacts

WorldSkills Liaison: Dan Blanck

Technical committee Chairperson for Mechatronics: Daniel Sandoval

Festo Didactic sponsored the fifth annual SkillsUSA National Mechatronics Competition.  The competition was held in Kansas City, Missouri (June 2004).

Mechatronics is defined as the combination of mechanics, electronics, Control and Information Technology to design and realize intelligent products, processes and systems. It has been described as Mechanical Engineering for the 21st Century.

Mechatronics is also viewed as a way of thinking or method and not as a technology. It involves an interdisciplinary effort towards problem solving.

In order to participate in the national competition, a student must have won the competition at a state level.

There were four parts to the competition:

• Students were presented with a Mechatronics problem in which they had to design and build an electropneumatic circuit.
• Students were given a piece of equipment that needed to be commissioned. They had to connect it to air and electrical supplies and then find the problems.
• An oral interview which tested their knowledge of ISO symbology and pneumatic theory.
• A written test to evaluate their knowledge of fluid power and mechanical principles.
  

The winners of the 2004 Competition were:

Secondary:

Gold - Dan Reece, Alexandria Tech College, Alexandria, Minnesota
Silver - James Dickens, Central Technology Center-Sapulpa, Oklahoma
Bronze - Gary Taylor, Utah Valley State College, Utah

Post-Secondary:

Gold - Brian Baird, Rolla AVTS, Missouri
Silver - Matt Lindemann, Alexandria Tech College, Alexandria, Minnesota
Bronze - Mark McKinzie, Carrigan Center, Texas

Two winners from this year's competition are eligible to go to the International WorldSkills Competition to be held May 25-June 1, 2005 in Helsinki, Finland.