Yellowstone Times

A machining team from Gallatin College Montana State University has been selected as one of 16 teams nationwide to participate in a regional manufacturing competition. The event is scheduled for April 7-11 in Logan, Utah.

Aubrin Heinrichs, the CNC Machine Technology program director at Gallatin College MSU, announced that four members of his six-person team will compete in the western division of the ProjectMFG Advanced Manufacturing Competition. The students representing Gallatin College MSU are Jack Benson, Issac Bunger, Julia Johnson, Tyler Nelson, Veronica Siegelin, and Joshua Sjostrom. This marks the first time students from Gallatin College MSU have reached this stage of the competition.

The top four teams from this regional event will advance to the national championship in June with an opportunity to win $100,000.

In October's qualifying round, Gallatin College MSU students competed against 40 schools nationwide. They were tasked with developing a casing for a gear housing assembly using Haas 3-axis milling machines located on their Frontage campus.

Heinrichs noted that his team members were only ten weeks into their nine-month degree program when they entered the competition. Despite being up against second and third-year students from other institutions, they excelled. "That’s the goal as a machinist: to put out top-quality work and let that work stand for itself," he stated.