Houston City College (HCC), NFPA’s Fast Track Hub in Texas, hosted their first Fluid Power Action Challenge (FPAC) competition on Friday, May 1st, sponsored by Hydraquip, Inc. Eighteen students from Attucks Middle School came to HCC’s Eastside Campus in Houston, TX to present their project portfolios and compete with their machines for prizes!
Working in teams, students presented a variety of designs for their machines, as well as demonstrated skills such as teamwork and problem solving. Portfolios included design illustrations such as both isometric and orthographic drawings to show scale and concepts. One team reflected in their portfolio that “Throughout this project, our team learned how important planning, testing, and teamwork are in engineering design. While building the hydraulic crane, we faced challenges such as air bubbles in the tubing, alignment issues, and maintaining structural stability…We also gained a better understanding of how hydraulics work, including how fluid pressure is used to create controlled motion.” The Crafty Crew team showcased both speed and accuracy with their machine, “Hydra-Hercules”, during the competition and the Power Rangers team design featured a unique slide mechanism to securely pick up the wooden competition peg.
Congratulations to the following teams for their achievements on Challenge Day:
- 1st Place Winner & Best Portfolio Award: “The Crafty Crew” team
- 2nd Place Winner & Teamwork Award: “Mission Possible” team
- 3rd Place Winner & Design Award: “Power Rangers” team
Many thanks to the continued support of Patrick Strimple from Employee Owned Holdings, Inc. and the engineering talents of Geoffrey Hartnup and Matt Long from Hydraquip, Inc. for their help throughout the day. The students enjoyed engaging with them to ask questions, test their machines’ functionality, and troubleshoot during their build process. Most importantly, everyone had fun, enjoyed learning by doing, and made progress on their further understanding on how fluid power fundamentals work in real applications. These in-person events are ways to make immediate impact on students who are curious about engineering career paths and for NFPA members to build relationships with local schools like HCC’s technical programs in the Houston area.
To learn more about HCC’s Fast Track Hub or FPAC activities, contact Erin Bauer at ebauer@nfpa.com.