2019 · Skills Competition Engineering
WorldSkills Kazan 2019 Test Projects
Two disciplines. Drawing packages for every competitor. Two physical assemblies built, validated, and shipped across the world to be solved against the clock in front of international judges.
2
WorldSkills disciplines designed
Pack
Drawings shipped with every competitor kit
Kazan
Russia destination
1
WorldSkills Medal of Appreciation
The Situation
Sheridan supplied the test projects.
WorldSkills is the global skills olympics. Every two years, the world's top trades competitors gather to solve the same physical project against the clock, judged to engineering tolerances.
For Kazan 2019, Sheridan's CAMDT lab designed two of those projects: Industrial Mechanical Millwright and Polymechanics. I worked on both, from CAD model to drawing set to the physical assemblies we validated and shipped to Russia.
01 · The Brief
Two disciplines. One design language.
Industrial Mechanical Millwright is a bench-scale precision mechanism: machined aluminum plates, linkages, gears, and fasteners assembled to tolerance. The competitor reads the drawing, fits the parts, and proves it works.
Polymechanics is the same rigor wrapped around a pneumatic control system. The competitor assembles a Festo-driven actuator, then wires and programs the control panel that drives it through a defined cycle.
02 · From CAD to Drawings
Every competitor in the world gets the same package.
Every competitor, from every country, had to receive an identical project kit and drawing package. Anything else would be a fairness problem.
I built the CAD models and tolerance stacks for each assembly, then produced the multi-sheet drawing sets competitors would work from: views, sections, GD&T callouts, and a bill of materials. Festo components anchored the Polymechanics build, so much of the design loop ran with a physical part in hand against the model on screen.
03 · Build & Validate
If the project does not go together, the competition does not happen.
Before anything shipped, both projects had to be built and validated in our own lab, at the same finish we expected from competitors. If a hole was off or a tolerance bound the assembly, we needed to find it here, not in Kazan.
I prototyped the Millwright on the bench, checking every plate, linkage, and fastener against the drawing pack. Anything that did not assemble as drawn went back into CAD and the next drawing revision.
04 · The Control Panel
Then we wired the panel.
Polymechanics is half mechanical, half controls. Behind every Festo cylinder is a manifold, a sensor, an indicator stack, and a panel of buttons and switches the competitor has to wire to spec.
We mocked the full panel and ran the cycle end to end. If the wiring guide was unclear, we rewrote it before it shipped.
05 · Shipping
Then we crated it up.
Every project was packed, labelled, and loaded for international freight, shipped under the WorldSkills Kazan 2019 banner with the discipline name on the side.
The work was now out of our hands, headed for a competition floor 8,000 km away.
06 · Recognition
WorldSkills Medal of Appreciation.
At the close of Kazan 2019, WorldSkills International issued a Medal of Appreciation to contributors who shaped the competition.
What landed it was a year of design, drawings, prototyping, and validation that put two projects on the international floor in working order.
Team & Credits
Simon Heathcote
Manager, MEET Labs
Coordinated the efforts with WorldSkills and led the project.
Craig Brazil
IMM Lead
Led the Industrial Mechanical Millwright competition.
Heartfelt gratitude to both for sharing their invaluable expertise, which they taught me along the way and which helped make this project a success.
Want to work together?
I am open to discussing new projects and creative collaborations.