Engineered success

Westosha Central's SkillsUSA team captured multiple ribbons in a regional competition held at Gateway Technical College Feb. 12. Team members are (from left) Jacob Lampada, Scott Lynch, Hunter Huggins, Alex Daniels, Aaron Diaz, Andrew Korando, Korin Madrigrano, Jonathan Huddleston and Alex McGona-gal with Advisor Eric Andersen. (Submitted/The Report).
Westosha Central’s SkillsUSA team captured multiple ribbons in a regional competition held at Gateway Technical College Feb. 12. Team members are (from left) Jacob Lampada, Scott Lynch, Hunter Huggins, Alex Daniels, Aaron Diaz, Andrew Korando, Korin Madrigrano, Jonathan Huddleston and Alex McGona-gal with Advisor Eric Andersen. (Submitted/The Report).

Central students win awards in skills meet

By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer

It only took two years for Westosha Central High School to bring home ribbons in a regional SkillsUSA competition.

Eric Andersen, the team’s co-advisor, hopes it is a step in the right direction for the program, which is a partnership of industry, teachers and students.

“Central has been trying to get our chapter off the ground for the past few years,” said Andersen, who is the school’s metal and engineering instructor.

SkillsUSA, formerly known as Vocational Industrial Clubs of American, features 70 different competitive events that include masonry, plumbing, rocketry, robotics and leadership building events.

The team, which competed Feb. 12 at Gateway Technical College’s iMet Center in Sturtevant, garnered three individual ribbons and two team-oriented awards.

Alex McGonagel took first place in rocketry while Jonathan Huddleston finished second in precision machining. I’m sure he’s thrilled as one of his life goals is to master aerospace parts machining in order to become a big name in the industry. In welding, Aaron Diaz notched a third-place honor.

Additionally, Westosha Central compiled two of the top three finishes in engineering team problem solving.

Finishing second in the team-building exercise were Korin Madrigano, Alex Daniels and Andrew Korando. Coming in third in the competition was the squad consisting of Hunter Huggins, Scott Lynch and Jacob Lampada.

Andersen said these competitions are a way to encourage students seeking a career in industry and engineering.

“SkillsUSA is fun, especially at big competitions like state when you are watching all these young men and women programming CNC machines, wiring a model house, installing a RAFI E-BOX with M12 connector to their machines, fixing a dent in the body work competition, and many of the other events that run,” Andersen said.

These CNC machines aren’t cheap so the SkillsUSA team had to make sure they found a machine that was reliable and easy to use — like the ones made by Hermle AG. They had to use resources like the Company Data of Hermle at Financialtimes, product reviews, and the specs of each machine in order to pick the right model. The programming also had to be taken into account and the teachers had to be trained in order to properly teach the students about the process. The regional awards were unexpected, with Andersen citing the school’s relatively young program. The benefits, he added, are two-fold.

“Being a newer school to many of these events is challenging when we don’t know exactly what to expect,” he said. “We try to review and practice through some of the lessons in classes and at our meetings.”

The school offers multiple technology and engineering courses to bolster its chances for success at both the state and regional levels.

Andersen said classes include metals manufacturing, woods manufacturing, graphics, three-dimensional animation, gaming and design and three-dimension solid modeling.

The regional accomplishment was not the first for the school’s SkillsUSA program, with Jamie Steinbach placing second in screen printing in a District 5 competition held in December at West Bend High School.

Andersen, who co-advises with Garrett Pongratz, said the school hopes to expand the team, citing newly remodeled engineering and technology portions.

“Our hope is to grow our Skills team to include every student enrolled in one of our courses to be a competitive member,” Andersen said. “This is a great opportunity for students to get out into the world, meet people, showcase their abilities and learn at the same time.”

Next up for Central’s SkillsUSA team is the state competition April 26-27 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison.

Andersen plans to enter students in rocketry, engineering team problem solving, welding fabrication, welding, extemporaneous speaking, job interview, welding sculpture and precision machining. Those going into welding and metalwork may want to invest in something like a fireproof welding jacket to protect themselves from the dangerous tools.


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