The Engineering Contest has always been one of the most interesting and exciting of contests since the start of SkillsUSA Europe back in 2018.  This highly involved contest challenges students to complete an entire engineering project, with prototype, in just four weeks.  The contest rubric was initially modeled after the FIRST Robotics challenge, having the notebook as a driving focus behind the prototype design.

Once we had an effective rubric and effective contest format, modifying the focus each year was quite simple.  Basically, I found an engineering challenge online and used that as a model.  Since then, either myself or one of the contest coordinators would come up with a new theme and simply apply a new background story to the challenge.

Historically, when we had our live competitions, students would have their contests completed with their prototype and trifold presentation.  As SkillsUSA competitors would come to the event, they would pass by all of the engineering designs.  I thought this would be a great way to inspire new engineers.  You can see some of the past contest and events at our official AFCEA SkillsUSA site HERE.

Previous engineering contest themes included the following:

2022 - Small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)

2021 - Modular 3-D Bioprinter

2020 - Mars Migration System

2019 - Indigenous Infrastructure System

2018 - Arduino Baloon Buster