Student teams from five area schools earned high honors at the NFPA Fluid Power Action Challenge at MSOE, with St. Joseph Catholic Academy Team A (pictured below) from Kenosha, Wisconsin named the 2018 Overall Winner of the event.  

The competition is designed to get middle school students excited about fluid power and on Nov. 12, eight schools sent 37 teams to compete at MSOE. There were four students on each team, and they worked hard to design and build fluid power mechanisms that pick an object from one platform, rotate and place it on another. In addition to the number of pick-and-place cycles a school’s machine completed, a review of each team’s design approach, teamwork and portfolio was used in the final evaluation.  

Team E from Lake Country School (Hartland, Wisconsin) received the 2018 Portfolio Award. Team B from Humboldt Park K-8 School (Milwaukee) received the 2018 Teamwork Award. Team A from Elkhorn Area Middle School (Elkhorn, Wisconsin) won the 2018 Design Award. Team E from Park View Middle School (Mukwonago, Wisconsin) won the 2018 Team Challenge.  

The NFPA Fluid Power Action Challenge introduced students to the world of engineering and fluid power during an on-campus workshop in October where they built a pneumatic lifter. During the Challenge, they returned to campus to apply their knowledge and compete against other teams and gain more hands-on experience while building a fluid power mechanism with real world applicability.  

Through the Challenges, the National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) hopes to encourage students to select more mathematics and science courses in their high school curricula to keep their options open for technology-based post-secondary studies. The program is sponsored by Bosch Rexroth, CEJN Industrial Group, Charter Dura-bar, Force America, GS Global Resources, HUSCO International, JM Grimstad, NFPA, MSOE, Poclain Hydraulics, Precision Plus, Thomas Magnete and WEB-Tec.  

NFPA provides a forum for the fluid power industry’s channel partners—manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, customers and educators. Its 335+ U.S. and multinational members work cooperatively in advancing hydraulic and pneumatic technology through the association’s many programs and initiatives.