Lincoln-Way Students Compete at National SkillsUSA Contest

A group of Lincoln-Way High School District 210 students are back from Kansas City, Missouri where they competed in the National SkillsUSA contest.

Lincoln-Way East juniors Paul Brushaber and Mike Rossetto, as well as Lincoln-Way East senior Allison Rymut, competed as a team in Automated Manufacturing contest while Lincoln-Way Central junior Hayley Knapp competed alone in the HVACR (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration) contest.

The team of Lincoln-Way East students took 7th in the nation in Automated Manufacturing while Hayley took 28th in the nation in HVACR.

“To see these students working in their respective contests for eight hours using a variety of skills to compete against the best in the nation and place like they did says an awful lot about how hard they have worked to prepare for their contests,” said Industrial Tech teacher Daniel Moore who accompanied the students to the contest held June 23-27 in Kansas City, Missouri.

SkillsUSA is a nonprofit organization that prepares high school and college students for trade, technical and skilled service occupations. It serves more than 300,000 students and instructors annually.

Students who competed at the national competition qualified for the opportunity after competing in a series of local and state competitions.

In the national Automated Manufacturing contest, Paul, Mike and Allison were evaluated for employment in integrated manufacturing technology fields of computer aided drafting/design (CAD), computer aided manufacturing (CAM), and computer numerical controlled machining (CNC). They had to create seven different parts that fit together so when you rotated one piece, four other parts would move at the same time.

In the HVACR contest, Hayley was tested in brazing skills, refrigerant component service, air measurement and troubleshooting, refrigerant recovery and electrical troubleshooting. She also had to take a written exam. Participants were expected to have knowledge of various industry equipment, including ice machines, refrigerated display cases, small package HVAC units, furnaces and split system air conditioning units.

“Most of the students competing at the national contest come from schools that specialize in the technical occupations where they are in classes for two or three hours a day training on equipment very similar to the equipment used at the national contest,” said Moore. “For our students to compete at the level they did is outstanding. Hayley did an awesome job in her contest because we don't have any classes in HVACR. Everything she knows is because of her time spent working with her dad who is in the HVACR business.”

More than 5,600 students from across the nation competed at the week-long event.