SME and Stratasys Announce Winners of 2026 SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition

SME and Stratasys have named the winners of the 2026 SkillsUSA Additive Manufacturing Competition, a national event held during the SkillsUSA Championships in Atlanta, Georgia. The competition tested high school and postsecondary students on design-for-additive-manufacturing (DfAM) skills, using Stratasys FDM/FFF printers and GrabCAD Print software to produce functional parts under timed constraints. Winners were selected across secondary and college/postsecondary divisions, with teams evaluated on part quality, design optimization, and adherence to build specifications. The event underscores a coordinated push by SME and Stratasys to formalize AM workforce pipelines at the vocational and technical education level.

This competition sits at the intersection of two critical AM industry trends: the growing skills gap in production AM and the need for standardized curriculum tied to commercial hardware. Stratasys, as the dominant polymer FDM/FFF supplier in education and industrial tooling, gains direct exposure to the next generation of AM technicians and engineers - embedding its ecosystem into training pathways before students enter the workforce. SME, as the professional society driving manufacturing certifications, provides the credentialing infrastructure that gives these competitions lasting weight beyond the event itself. The partnership mirrors similar workforce-development plays seen in metal AM (e.g., America Makes/NCDMM programs) but focuses on the polymer extrusion segment, which remains the largest entry point for AM education due to lower cost and broader accessibility.

For Stratasys, this is a long-cycle brand-investment play rather than a near-term revenue driver. The real value accrues if competition participants become repeat buyers or specifiers of Stratasys equipment in industrial settings. For the broader AM industry, the signal is that workforce development is shifting from ad-hoc training to structured, nationally recognized competitions - a necessary condition for AM to scale beyond its current technician bottleneck. The winners themselves gain portable credentials that may accelerate their entry into manufacturing roles, but the larger story is the institutional scaffolding being built around AM education.