Albion seniors Josh Zayac and Elliot Beyrle were among 100 students who traveled to Alfred State College on March 3 to represent the Orleans-Niagara BOCES' Career and Technical Education Centers at the Area 1 SkillsUSA Regional Conference.
Josh (pictured left), who is enrolled in the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering program, competed in the Related Technical Math competition where he earned first place.
Elliot, also enrolled in the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering program at BOCES, competed in the CNC 3 - Axis Milling Programmer competition where he earned first place.
They spent the last several months preparing for the competition. The SkillsUSA Championships begin at the local chapters across the country. Local winners advance to the New York State competition, testing their skills against competitors from other schools. The gold medalists then compete at the National SkillsUSA competition in June where they hope to earn gold, silver and bronze medallions, scholarships, tools of the trade and even job offers. The SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference is one of the largest hands-on workforce development events in the world that features 6,5000 state champions across the United States who compete in head-to-head in over 114 skilled and leadership competitions.
We congratulate both students on this tremendous accomplishment and wish them the best of luck at the national level.
More about the skills required for the respective SkillsUSA competition categories:
Related Technical Math:
Through a written test, competitors demonstrate the skills required to solve mathematical problems correctly that are commonly found in the skilled trades and professional and technical occupations. Skills demonstrated include addition; subtraction; multiplication; division of whole numbers; fractions and decimals; applied word problems; percentages; ratio proportions; averages; area; volume; metric measures; and traditional (Imperial) measures and trigonometry.
CNC 3 - Axis Milling Programmer
This competition evaluates each competitor’s ability to independently plan and program jobs for CNC (Computer Numerical Control) turning centers and provide instructions for operators to execute. Competitors program part features and generate NC code using CAM software, troubleshoot G-code programming errors, interpret prints (including geometric dimensioning and tolerancing or GD&T), measure/gauge parts, and demonstrate their theoretical knowledge of CNC turning center configuration, setup, and operation.