Bridging the Skills Gap: Smartforce Student Summit

This year’s IMTS marked the 10th anniversary of the show’s Smartforce Student Summit, an interactive showcase designed to help students (from grade school through college) discover the exciting potentials of a career in manufacturing. The theme was “Manufacturing Brighter Futures” and is true for exhibiting companies as well at students. For 2016 the Summit added a career fair, the Smartforce Career Launch Pad, for students in career and technical education programs, community colleges and engineering schools who are nearing workforce readiness. Students searching for an internship or a job uploaded their resumes to MTCareers.org and connected with companies, set up interviews and got an inside track toward launching their careers.
Student Challenges

The Summit included a variety of challenges including:

Make It! Students made 3D printed rockets and then tested them in a one-of-a-kind special air power flight-test tower.

Tool It! A demonstration of how manufacturing affects virtually everything we touch — from aircraft and automobiles to smart phones, computers and more. (Hosted by Sandvik Coromant)

Automate It! Operating machine components and parts with a robotic arm and grippers.

Weld It with Robots! Navigating a robot through a realistic welding obstacle course.

Build It! Experienced mechatronics student teams went against teams of industry professionals in a WARDJet waterjet cutting machine build-off competition for a chance to win a waterjet for their school’s machining lab.

We hope this year’s student visitors at IMTS had an eye-opening and inspiring experience!