Designed to encourage students to solve real-world problems with STEM solutions, Altec’s Innovation Challenge has long been a success for high school students. Building on that success, Altec recently hosted its Inaugural Engineering Innovation Challenge. This version of the challenge expanded to the collegiate level.
Through partnerships with local universities and the National Society of Black Engineers, three teams of engineering students from Auburn University and UAB, Tuskegee University, the University of Alabama were invited to compete in the program to gain real-world engineering experience and win scholarships.
“Now in my second semester of my sophomore year, I’m in a class on manufacturing processes,” said Daryl Cossey, sophomore Tuskegee student. “I’m doing a challenge that literally will help me understand why forming something correctly in a manufacturing plant matters. This project gives you a really good scope of what the real-world application of what you’re learning in the classroom is.”
Improving a Manufacturing Process
While the high-school version of the challenge asks students to address a community need, the Engineering Innovation Challenge asked students to address a specific manufacturing process at Altec’s Southern manufacturing facility in Birmingham.
Before they are shipped to a final assembly location, truck bodies designed at Southern are exposed to simulated weather conditions to ensure they are water-tight. The current leak tester was designed 10 years ago by engineering interns and takes up a large footprint. Participating teams were tasked with updating the design of the leak tester to better meet current space needs while still meeting requirements of truck-testing.
Students were provided with a list of must-have requirements, like-to-have requirements, and Altec mentors to assist with the project. Teams were able to visit the facility to view the current leak tester and plan their new designs.
“At the kickoff event in October, we presented the problem to them, gave them some design criteria to follow, assigned them Altec mentors and really just let them go and start their problem-solving process,” said Jay Eichelberger, general manager of Birmingham Operations.
Rising to the Challenge
Teams continued to meet regularly and worked with Altec mentors to come up with an effective leak testing concept. In January, teams were invited to Birmingham to present their projects to a group of Altec associates and a panel of judges that included leadership from engineering and human resources. Tuskegee took the first-place title for their design, followed by the team of Auburn and UAB, with University of Alabama taking third place.
“What we saw was frankly really amazing,” Eichelberger said. “You have a group of students—many have not been in a factory environment before and did not have a history of Altec—and they were able to take a process they were introduced to three short months ago and apply what they were learning in school to a practical process.”
Six of the students who participated in the challenge will be interning with Altec this summer in multiple locations. Thank you to all students who participated and to the Altec steering team who made this event a resounding success.
