PACK EXPO International introduced a new competition this year that debuted at the packaging and processing show in Chicago, IL — PACK Challenge! Six teams of local Chicago high school students were selected to participate in assembling and designing a filler machine using pneumatics for the onsite competition at McCormick Place in Chicago. Crete-Monee High School was one of those teams selected.
The Crete-Monee team attended a kick-off meeting in June at Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery in Wisconsin where students were able to ask questions, learn about the packaging industry and see first-hand how a filling system is designed, manufactured, assembled, wired and programmed. The team then attended Build Day at Morrison Container Handling Solutions on July 12th where they received a pre-crated kit containing components such as a conveyor, frame, PLC and HMI that was necessary in order to build the filling machine. All teams were given about three months to design and build their machine before the competition in October at the Pack Expo International Show.
The Crete-Monee team spent about 1500 hours designing, programming, and problem-solving their filling machine which consisted of marbles being placed into bottles for a mock production line. About 1500 additional hours were spent on 3d printing to complete the design. The team consisted of Reymundo Bernardino, Jashaun Dixon, William Gray, Logen Malmgren, Samuel Rosenfeldt, Hayden Stroh, Alexander Kiran, and Jaeden Roberts along with teacher sponsors Bill Kuban, Construction, Metals, and Manufacturing Teacher and Monica King, Math Teacher.
Once completed, the machine designed by the team was crated and shipped to Pack Expo International for the competition that ran from October 23-26, 2022. Onsite at the Pack Challenge Competition, the team was required to build their filling machine and conduct multiple presentations. They were then judged in a variety of areas including design, operator training, changeover and sales/marketing. By participating in this competition, the team learned a great deal on manufacturing and design, problem solving and leadership skills, trial and error methods, and sportsmanship.
Overall, the team had the fastest changeover of 28.6 seconds with the highest accuracy percentage. They placed third overall in the cup filler category and were awarded a $1,000 prize which will be used for additional equipment within the Crete-Monee Manufacturing Program. Congratulations to the team on all their hard work and dedication!
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