SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition

SME, in partnership with Stratasys, created the SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition to attract students to the new, exciting, emerging technologies and tools involved in this market. The competition helps contestants better understand additive manufacturing applications and provides them with hands-on experience using the latest 3D printing technology and software.

Since establishing the program over five years ago, the SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition has grown from 13 participating teams in 2015 to nearly 50 competitors in 2019.

Each year, the challenge changes, allowing participants to experience first-hand what manufacturing professionals can deal with on the job. The focus of each contest ranges from designing objects that help streamline processes within the manufacturing factory setting to solving real-life medical problems.

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Most Recent & Past Challenges

2024 Color, Material, Finish

Contestants were challenged to design a new product that their company will soon be releasing.

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2023 SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition

2023 Gripper Assembly

Contestants were required to design a 3D printed rotating gripper assembly that grabbed and moved three different size objects from one location to another.

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2022 3D-Printed Enclosure

Students were required to design a 3D-printed enclosure that housed three different components while illustrating best practices for “design for additive manufacturing (DFAM)”.

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2021 Smart Speaker

Students were required to design a smart speaker, called a “pebble,” using a set geometry that then was printed by Stratasys on one of its commercial Stratasys J55 Prime 3D polymeric printers.

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2020 Competition Canceled

Due to the ongoing uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic, the SkillsUSA organization has canceled all in-person events at its 2020 National Leadership and Skills Conference; this cancellation includes the Additive Manufacturing Competition.

2019 Robotic EOAT

SME and Stratasys partnered with FANUC for the 2019 challenge, which involved the design, fabrication, and application an end of arm tool (EOAT) in a simulated real-life manufacturing robotics scenario.

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2018 Adaptive Device

For the 2018 Additive Manufacturing Competition, students were challenged to solve a real-life medical problem for a veteran who endured a traumatic thumb amputation on his left hand.

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