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21 Years and Counting.....

On 3/23/2007

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Contributed by: Kevin Finkel on 4/30/2007

For the past twenty years, the Pierce College Westec Manufacturing Challenge teams have never received anything less than third place in their division, and this year made it twenty-one. Every year students of the Los Angeles Pierce College Machine Shop have taken up the challenge to solve problems and create new solutions.

With nearly six months of planning, designing, testing and finally machining, it all came down to one weekend in March. The Western Tool and Engineering Conference (WESTEC) happens every year at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Vendors from all over the world show up to demonstrate new technology, tooling and machines. Attached to WESTEC, is the Manufacturing Challenge, open to all junior colleges and universities from across the western half of the United States. Junior college projects are judged based on new and innovative methods of machining. Universities are judged on solving an industry problem. However, there is nothing in the rules that says a junior college cannot compete on the university level.

Three students: Matt Saario (team leader / sophmore), Chris Silva (freshman / conventional machinist), Vladimir Khanenko (sophmore / cnc programmer / conventional machinist), and Josh Gorin (freshman / conventional machinist) along with their teachers / advisors Ron Smetzer, Paul Stevens, Doug Allen, and Bruce Joseph have created a different style of the Locking Jaw Crescent Wrench. It looks like an ordinary crescent wrench but with a flip of a lever the jaw stays put, allowing the user to turn the same size bolts or nuts without losing the setting resulting from the slipping of the thumbscrew. Their team leader, Matt estimates that with mass production, their wrench would cost no more than an ordinary crescent wrench.

WESTEC and the Los Angeles Pierce College Machine Shop.....
Twenty-one years of winning third place or higher...
Twenty-one years and counting.

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