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Announced at the recent [MC]² Conference in Chicago, the MTConnect Student Challenge is offering a total of $33,000 in cash prizes for winning submissions from college students. This competition is designed to encourage these students to think creatively about concepts and applications for improving manufacturing with the MTConnect standard. The aim is to generate awareness of advanced manufacturing technologies, as well as lead to innovations that help manufacturers, especially those serving the defense industry.

To participate in the challenge, students at the undergraduate and graduate level in community colleges and universities are invited to submit ideas in applications utilizing the MTConnect standard. The competition is expected to be of particular interest to those studying manufacturing-related fields; electrical, mechanical or industrial engineering; as well as software engineering and IT-related studies. is an open-source, XML-based communications standard that fosters connectivity between manufacturing equipment and devices.

The MTConnect Student Challenge has two parts: Idea Creation and Application Development.

For the Idea Creation competition, students will be required to interview manufacturers to identify their challenges, describe potential solutions to those challenges and create conceptual mockups for solutions. The prizes for this competition are $5,000 for first place, $2,500 for second place and three $1,000 prizes for runners up. Submission opens June 11, 2015 and closes September 18, 2015. Winners will be announced October 15, 2015.

For the Application competition, students will be required to develop an application that demonstrates innovation and the use of manufacturing intelligence breakthroughs. Submissions will be rated based on their potential to create achievable and measurable benefits to manufacturing operations. These benefits include improving efficiencies, minimizing waste, reducing costs, and the like. The prizes for this competition are $10,000 for first place, $7,500 for second place and $5,000 for third place. Submission opens June 11, 2015 and closes January 31, 2016. Winners will be announced April 20, 2016 at the [MC]² Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Full rules and submission details are available at here.

“The MTConnect Student Challenge seeks to engage the higher education community to promote innovative thinking and ideas, and ultimately to enable manufacturing intelligence breakthroughs for the defense manufacturing industry,” says Douglas K. Woods, president of the MTConnect Institute and president of AMT–The Association For Manufacturing Technology. Mr. Woods says he hopes the competition will inspire a broader base of software and system architects; build a new, skilled workforce by increasing students’ awareness of advanced manufacturing technologies; and develop MTConnect applications that can be easily adopted by manufacturers of all sizes.

The MTConnect Student Challenge is sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Defense-wide Manufacturing Science and Technology (DMS&T) and executed by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, the U.S. Army Benét Labs, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), and the MTConnect Institute, in partnership with SME and the National Tooling and Machining Association.