CAD/CAM Helps Team Win Advanced Manufacturing Competition

Minnesota State College Southeast’s (MSCS) “Average Joes” team won the 2023 Project MFG Advanced Manufacturing Competition, which aired on the “Clash of the Trades” show.

The four-student, Winona-based MSCS team of second-year students — which includes Bradley Bishop, Ellery Kiesel, Ivey Wadman Vehrenkamp and Austyn Warren — won $100,000 in prize money, split between the team and school. The team says it was well prepared for the competition’s challenges due to its school’s manufacturing program and industry partnerships.

“We had very talented teams compete this year,” says Lauren Davidson, Project MFG communications manager. “It was wonderful to see all the teams showcase their skills and talents and rise to the challenge. Congratulations to the Minnesota State College Southeast students — a team that never competed before — who went into the qualifying round without five-axis experience, made it to regionals and nationals, then ultimately won.”

For the final challenge, the team was tasked with making hip replacement parts in a shopfloor environment that included order changes and time requirements. One of the parts — the cup that is placed in a hip to hold the hip joint in place — had a tricky five-axis curve, and no one on the team had experience machining a multi-axis curve.

“Our programmer had never done a five-axis curve before. But with the usability of Mastercam, and with Verify and Machine Simulation, he was able to figure things out without ever having any training on it,” says machine tool program instructor Rick Hengel, who graduated from the program he now teaches. “He worked through the steps, and the curved part turned out great.”

Warren, who programmed the acetabular cup, says he wanted to stick with what he was comfortable doing. “My number one plan for programming my parts was sticking to as much 3+2 machining as possible,” he says. “I was proficient in three-axis machining and wanted to find ways to simply use and create different planes to attack the part from multiple angles.”

MSCS plans to use its $50,000 share to purchase a new Hass milling machine. To run its CNC machines, MSCS has 25 seats of Mastercam 2024 for three-axis, plus five seats for five-axis. Plans to add new machines are in the works.

“After winning the competition, we’re going to work really hard to see if we can get a Haas five-axis in our building,” says Hengel. “We’re definitely going to give (the competition) a shot every year. If we get a five-axis machine, that will help. I think we can make it to the top-16 round every year.”