After competing in a national competition, Semmy Badenhop, a Saline High School senior, was crowned the first-ever National Machining League Champion.
Badenhop earned both the prestigious title and a $10,000 grand prize.
To learn more about this great news, the Sun Times News connected with Jackelyn Martin, Saline Area Schools’ Executive Director of Communications and Community Relations.
The National Competition is part of the National Machining League, which is a high-school level individual competition testing CNC/Machining skills up to 3-axis surfacing. Project MFG Competitions are based on the design, manufacturing, assembly, and testing of a “product” through a competition platform in which individual students compete against one another to complete a trade project.
Martin said schools can submit up to three students to individually compete and challenge each student’s ability to think critically, manage resources, and demonstrate skill and competency in machining.
The competition, which was held at Southwestern Illinois College on March 31-April 2, saw 15 qualifying students participating in the event.
The significance of this win was summed up well by Trent Trout, a Computer Integrated Manufacturing Instructor in Saline, and South and West Washtenaw Consortium Director Kara Stemmer.
Trout said of the experience, “I am beyond proud of Semmy for not just making it to the National Championship, but then winning it! The National Machining League is one of the most rigorous competitions I have seen, he worked tirelessly to practice for the competition and to refine his skills as a machinist. This is a big win for him and for the program.”
While Stemmer said, “I strongly believe that the skills Semmy developed in Mr. Trout’s Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) class and Mr. Vasiloff’s Computer-Aided Design (CAD) class — combined with the experience of competing, and winning, in such a rigorous, industry-recognized competition — will give him a significant advantage as he moves forward. Career and Technical Education classes truly have the power to change the trajectory of students’ lives. We’re incredibly grateful to the industry partners who invest in our high school students; these experiences and relationships are invaluable.”
As for the big winner, Badenhop said, “We all walked in with a large level of unknowns because you come from your home school where you maybe have one or two mini-mills, and then you come to Southwestern Illinois College where they’ve got a $20 million brand-new shop. But at the end of the day, it was still such a fun competition—and win, lose, or draw, you still get to come and gain this new experience.”
Photo: Semmy Badenhop (left), Trent Trout (right). Courtesy of Saline Area Schools
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