May 2008 NFPA Fluid Power Challenge The very first National
Fluid Power Association (NFPA) Fluid Power Challenge, was held
on Friday, May 9th at the Kettle Moraine High School (Wales,
WI). The 2008 competition, attended by three teams from three
Wisconsin Middle Schools, was won by the team of grade eight
students from The three teams designed and constructed a
mechanism that used hydraulics technology to perform a defined
task. The students were asked to design and build fluid-power
mechanisms for picking an object from one platform, rotating,
and placing it on another platform. The teams were evaluated on
the number of pick-and-place cycles a school's machine completes
as well as a review of each team's design approach documented
through the use of a design portfolio. Kettle Moraine Middle
School and Hmong American Peace Academy (Milwaukee, WI) were
runners up. Ryan Nihoris, a student on the Kettle Moraine team,
said “This opens up more opportunities for engineering and
careers kids aren't aware of. It's fu