SkillsUSA Nationals Competition for Robotics and Automation

 June 23rd - 27th - SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC) held a national competition in Atlanta, Georgia, for those who won their state competitions earlier in the school year.   

Lorenz Henry and Hayden Maus competed in the Robotics and Automation Tecchnologies (RAT) competition as Ohio competitors.   Out of 16 high school teams that competed, these Bellefontaine High School students took 7th place in their first national competition.  

The competition consisted of a written test on Tuesday, followed by 7 am - 5 pm competition on Wednesday.  During the competition, there were 3 phases to complete the challenges.   The first challenge was to use the Yaskawa robot to sort cubes that had a hole on one side, followed by confirming whether it was a metal or plastic part.    To do this, students had to program the robot to check all 6 sides!   Then if there was a hole to sort by material.   The robot then placed the cubes in a trash, plastic, or metal sorting area.    Phase 2 of the competition added a Siemens PLC in which the students had to wire and program the PLC to communicate with the robot, and light stack.   This light stack flashed lights in certain colors to represent certain task had been completed.    In the final phase of the competition, students had to add an inspection camera and sort whether the cubes had a check mark or an X on one of the 6 sides.  BHS student completed phases 1 and 2.     Only a few schools got to phase 3.  During the RAT competition debriefing, the competition hosts (Intellitek & Yaskawa) stated that normally, instead of 7 hours, a week would be given in industry to perfect these 3 phases.   Judges were from Intellitek, Yaskawa, FANUC, and Nissan. 

The award ceremony was hosted at State Farm Arena on Friday evening (6/27/2025) 

We are very proud of Lorenz and Hayden, who represented Bellefontaine High School and Ohio well!   These 2 were our first Juniors to compete at state and go to nationals.   Wait until 2025-26, their senior year, to see what else they can accomplish.   

When not competing, these student learned about welding on a FANUC collaborative robot by creating their initials.   FANUC & APT MFG had a booth and were demonstrating and providing instructions on how easy it is to weld with a robot.  Students also worked toward NOCTI Fanuc certification and Autodesk certifications as well.  They hope to complete those additional Industry credentials while in high school.   

During their brief downtime, the students and their instructor took in a downtown Atlanta attraction - the Georgia Aquarium.