Recap: Sparks and Smoke Welding Competition – Apr 3rd

The inaugural “Sparks and Smoke” welding competition was held at Central Maintenance and Welding in Lithia Florida to kick of National Welding Month. Seventy seven students from thirteen schools including Durant High School-Plant City, Erwin Technical College-Tampa, Florida Technical College Orlando, Erwin Technical College-Tampa, Fort Myers Technical College, Hillsborough Community College-Ybor City, The Ironworkers Local 397 Apprenticeship-Tampa, Manatee Technical College-Bradenton, Pasco-Hernando State College-New Port Richie, Pinellas Technical College-St. Petersburg, Travis Technical College-Lakeland, Valencia College-Kissimmee, and Valencia College-Orlando. Students participated in a Job Hazard Analysis and Hot Work permit before proceeding to the welding area, where the teams set up their own canopy tents, hooked up their machines and changed out the 0.045″ drive rollers to 0.035″ for the 11 gauge materials that made of the fire ring project. Students were given a print with Bill of Materials and Welding Procedure Specifications for GMAW and SMAW. Each team was given 4 hours to complete the project. CMW provided the fire watch and Danger Zone entrant watch as well as Safety monitors. The students all did phenomenal jobs and their instructors were available to help coach their teams. Students were overheard confirming the weld call-outs with their instructors. The “team” approach and instructor coach method provided an atmosphere where the students thrived. The Judges struggled to pick the winners, as every fire ring was worthy of winning, but the contest came down to Travis Technical College’s team (Joe Meier, Holden Owens, Hunter Poucher, Instructor Jordan Cox, Kade Ward, and Liam Keeffe) having the most consistent proper size and quality welds. CMW held plant tours through the Main and Pipe fabrication shops and set up a welding “carnival” type atmosphere where our welding industry partners were invited to set up tents and bring their trucks. Gas companies held separate mini competitions for cutting, NDE brought their X-Ray rig and showed off Ultrasonics, Milwaukee and Dynabrade hat tool demonstrations. Lincoln Electric and Red-D-Arc/Miller had exhibits, AWS had an Exhibit, as well as Local Unions were on hand to answer questions for students. Also, students were asked to make Rocket Stoves to compete for Scholarships. They were given basic dimensions and the base/feet as well as the cook surface, and handles etc. were left up for interpretation. Judging was 80% on dimensions and weld quality and additional design freedom was reserved in case of a tie. We received 30 entries, and some exquisite designs. In the end, two students from Hillsborough Community College turned in the winning two stoves. Herman Gonzalez won first place and William Wabberson took second place. CMW served over 250 lunches for this event. This competition also had some AMAZING sponsors including the American Welding Society, Milwaukee tools, Riverhawk Industrial Supply, Ryerson Steel, Red-D-Arc, Ramm Recycling, United Rentals, Southern States Millwrights Local 1000, Dynabrade, Brewington’s Towing and Recovery (who supplied a heavy recker and huge American Flag), Lincoln Electric, Miller, Magnegas, NDE Inc. Matheson Gas, SIms Crane & Equipment, Airgas, Herc Rentals, Uniweld, and Doodie Calls. These sponsors provided over $15,000 work of materials, prizes, and rentals for this competition, and we could not have pulled this off without all of these FANTASTIC companies supporting tomorrow’s future welders.