SkillsUSA competition to test diesel students

Montana State University-Northern is the repeat host of the 44th statewide SkillsUSA competition, and the games will begin Monday.

Will Taylor, the chairperson for the diesel competition portion of the event and a professor in the diesel program at Northern, said 13 students from Havre High School and the college will be competing this year.

“It’s an honor to be able to host these continually,” Taylor said.

Nine college students and six high school students from Havre will be testing themselves in various skills such as finding and solving problems in engines.

There will be 13 stations where the students look at a vehicle, Taylor said. The college students will be looking at a semi-trailer and high school students will be looking at a pickup truck.

The competitors’ names are kept as secret as possible from organizers before set-up for the competition.

“We do our best to make sure we don’t know much about the students who are competing to level out the playing field,” Taylor said.

Taylor said this is to avoid any students from gaining an unfair advantage. All students will be able to see the stations and take photos if they would like to see what they are up against prior to the start of the competition.

Taylor said the students will test the vehicle’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, hydraulics and engines. Afterward, the students must complete a technical writing task. They will have to write a work order that companies and customers could understand easily.

This is a statewide competition by definition, Taylor said, but mostly only Billings and Havre partake in it.

“We’re trying to get others, but we can’t force them to come,” Taylor said.

Taylor said the competition is an opportunity for students to test themselves and their knowledge and find where they excel and where they are lacking.

The competition is not judged on whether or not they solve the problem but how they solve it. The competitors are judged on factors like workmanship and safety. If they just jump in and start cutting wires haphazardly, that takes their score down, Taylor said.

“They have to not only be able to solve the problem, but solve it efficiently, with minimal collateral damage,” Taylor said.

This is the fourth year Taylor has been helping organize the competition, and he has only seen one student from Northern take first in this state competition. The student couldn’t go to the national championships due to costs, Taylor said.

The national competition will be in Kansas City this year from June 23 to 27.