Challenging Bright Students to Become Manufacturing Experts

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

SMTA’s Bright Manufacturing Challenge program is a post-secondary mechatronics competition spread over several months in which student teams are given a product specification with constraints; their finished product then competes with other teams in a live robot race at SMTA International. We spoke with Director Tara Dunn on the show floor about the competition.

Nolan Johnson: Tara, we're standing here in front of the competition area for the Bright Electronics Manufacturing Challenge at SMTAI. Tell me about what’s going on here.

Tara Dunn: Nolan, it’s the end of a very exciting student challenge. This challenge started last July, and today is the finals. This is an overarching challenge where students design a line-following robot. They design the printed circuit, which we fabricate through ASC Sunstone, one of the program sponsors. The teams assemble their boards and then race for performance on our course.

Johnson: To the casual eye, the robots look identical, but I suspect they’re not.

Dunn: No, they're not. In the design portion of the challenge, teams were given constraints: board size, number of layers, and a bill of materials that had to be used. They then had the freedom to lay that out in any way they chose. In addition, they were given the opportunity to add one feature they believed would improve their robot's performance.

Johnson: What are some examples of what teams might have chosen for their additional feature?

Dunn: I wouldn’t want to give away any of their secrets, but last night, we had a pedestal set up for each team. The teams were standing around their pedestals, discussing their added features with attendees and explaining why they chose them. Often it was related to improving the sensors, but they all had a very different approach.

Johnson: This feels similar to class-restricted racing, like Formula One. There are a lot of constraints to stay within, but some areas allow design freedom for competitive advantage.

Dunn: Absolutely, just like in the real world. For example, in the middle of the design phase, we issued an engineering change notice. I won’t say whether that was intentional, but we did make a couple of design changes throughout the challenge. After the design phase ended in July, 11 of the initial 31 teams were selected to continue on; they’re the teams competing here.

Like I mentioned, we fabricated their boards at a real-world board shop. The teams got to have the experience of fielding DFM reports and design questions, and then they were given kits with the components and the boards, and were able to build their robots. A big part of this also comes down to programming the microcontroller software. Teams were given a software development board that they used as a baseline to get started.

Last night, the PCB’s that each team designed —not the board that's racing today, but the same board design—was their workpiece for the soldering competition. Each team hand-soldered the components on the board, and then we had the judging for that round this morning.

Johnson: Fantastic. The track is large flat surface about the size of a single car garage with a very complex pattern of black line traces on top of it. It looks like the robots are expected to follow those black lines from start to finish. There are honeycombs, five-point stars, and spirals in the route. Are those meant to try and throw off the robot?

Dunn: Yes, exactly. In addition, several features on the track have both a short and a long path. Depending on how sophisticated the programming is, teams might take advantage of the shortcut. I've watched some robots take that shortcut today, and others get stuck in the long loop. Because they're racing for time, that's an important feature to add.

This year, we added a People's Choice Award. Attendees could vote for the coolest robot using whatever criteria they chose. That was part of last night’s adventure as well. This added another layer of design constraints to balance. The robot could look really cool for the People’s Choice, but if it's heavy, it’ll be slow in the competition. They had to make all the trade-offs and choices.

Working with the students has been amazing. Some of them were up all night, adapting their entry after getting some track experience. They brought all kinds of their own tools, too. I've seen this happen repeatedly, where a team needs something, say a multimeter or solder, and someone from a different team says, “Oh, I have one.” Even though this is a competition, that level of cooperation is great.

Johnson: How did you recruit the teams?

Dunn: This is our second year of the Bright Manufacturing Challenge, so some schools are back again, and the rest were outreach. At SMTA, we conduct extensive outreach to colleges, universities, and tech schools to support workforce development, which in turn supports this network as well. Local SMTA chapters spread the word, and we just blasted it out in any way that we could: LinkedIn, Meta newsletters, everything. Ultimately, it took getting to the professors running courses where this challenge would be applicable.

Johnson: This challenge is much more than the PCB, though.

Dunn: Exactly. These teams intentionally form with multifunction in mind: mechanical, electrical, hardware design, and software. The different skills have to work together. It's been amazing to watch how they all work together.

Johnson: Where are some of the teams coming from?

Dunn: As a few examples, we've got UMass Lowell, University of Minnesota, Michigan Tech, St. Mary's, University of South Florida. They’re really from across the country.

Johnson: What a great way to just bring together, in the student lab, many of the real-world dynamics, constraints, and mid-design changes that we face in industry. It’s in a scalable size, so you get that real-world experience.

Dunn: They've got a demonstrated product to show, a “I competed at this.” Many of them came prepared with resumes and business cards. They've been enjoying some of that industry networking as well.

Johnson: Tara, thank you.

Dunn: It's been fun. Thank you.

Competing Teams:

The 2026 finalist teams competing at SMTA International were:

• Copper Country Huskies | Michigan Technological University
• Team Fishies | University of Massachusetts Lowell
• Driftless | University of Wisconsin – Platteville
• Space Bulls | SUNY Buffalo
• Copper Fangs | St. Mary's University
• Reno Kings | University of Nevada, Reno
• Surface Mounted Bulls | University of South Florida
• GND_Hogs | University of Minnesota
•  Indiana Tech PCB Warriors | Indiana Institute of Technology
• M.O.S.F.E.T. | St. Mary's University
• Buff Bots | SUNY Buffalo

Round 1 Winners: Copper Country Huskies | Michigan Technological University and Team Fishies | University of Massachusetts Lowell

Round 2 Winner: Copper Country Huskies | Michigan Technological University

Round 3 Winner: Team Fishies | University of Massachusetts Lowell

People’s Choice Winner: Buff Bots | SUNY Buffalo