Every year Nebo School District’s five high schools rotate the location of the Annual Nebo Welding Competition Invitational. This year the competition was held at Spanish Fork High School. Provo High School was also invited this year.
The students prepare all year and host their own in-house contest to select the three best welders. For the competition, each student receives a blueprint for a "Welding Widget" and a stack of metal. The students are then tested to see if they can follow the plans, while following the contest guidelines, to create a widget with the welds in the proper place, while reaching dimensional accuracy.
First Place, Ben Cornaby, a competitor from Maple Mountain High, exclaimed, “I love the challenge of assembling the individual widgets into one at the end. Competing with welders from schools in our school district is always fun!"
Each of the competitors rotates through several timed stations for welding processes. Those are OFC (Oxy Fuel Cutting), GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding), FCAW (Flux Cored Arc Welding), SMAW (Shielded Metal Arc Welding), and GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding). The competitor also completes a written test on welding theory.
Landon Wright, a competitor from Maple Mountain High, said, “This competition was very fun and challenging. I learned a lot about my abilities and the other kids in our district. I am very grateful for our amazing instructors putting on the contest.”
Each school's top performers are also getting the experience to represent their school and district at the State SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference at the end of March. The State winner will represent Utah at SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Georgia this June.
These contests and preparation help the student welders feel the pressure of executing their best welds when it matters most. When these student welders move on to the workforce, they will not get multiple attempts on a critical weld.
Welding Winners for 2023
First Place, Ben Cornaby--MMHS (In Picture Middle)
Second Place, Cinch Sorensen--SFHS (In Picture Left)
Third Place, McLayne Balzly--Payson HS (In Picture Right)
High School Welding Instructors:
Springville High Instructor, Brian Ostler
Maple Mountain High Instructor, Jared Massic
Spanish Fork High Instructor, Riley Hallam
Salem Hills High Instructor, Andy Neeves
Payson High Instructor, Shaun Black
Provo High Instructor, Kaleb Money
Winners Photo: Cinch Sorensen 2nd, Ben Cornaby 1st, McLayne Balzly 3rd
MMHS Students in photo: Ben Cornaby, Landon Wright, Tate Hickman
Congratulations to Landon Wright for answering this week’s “Where are we Wednesday?” challenge sponsored by Wiggy Wash.
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