Bending Circuits, Breaking Expectations: Meet the Round 1 Winners of the Bright Manufacturing Student Challenge 2025

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

The Bright Manufacturing Student Challenge brings together student teams to design and develop innovative solutions for real-world electronics manufacturing problems. The eight-week competition, sponsored by the Electronics Manufacturing & Assembly Collaborative (EMAC) through electronicsworkforce.com, allows students to showcase their technical skills, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. The Rise and Grind Crew were winners of the first round in the competition, and students Kevin Vo, Alexander (Alex) Wan, and Ethan Chung sat down with SMTA’s Tara Dunn to talk about the value of teamwork, AI integration in PCB design, and the satisfaction of seeing their hard work come to life. These programs, and their students, are helping shape the future of the electronics industry.

Tara Dunn: Let’s rewind to the start. How did this whole thing land on your radar, and what made you jump in?

Kevin Vo: It’s kind of funny how it actually happened. All of us participating are in an informal research group together. Since it’s the summer, Levi (the other member of the group) told us that we need more experience, so he just signed us up for the competition, and we said, “Ok, that sounds good.”

Dunn: When you first heard about it, what made you say, “Yeah, let’s go for it”?

Alex Wan: So, I’ve heard of traditional software-focused hackathons, but I’ve never seen a similar type of competition focused on electrical engineering. Also, the time frame and accessibility of the competition made it really appealing and something fun and manageable to do over the summer, especially with a busy schedule. And then, I just love robots, and I’m really interested in circuits and hardware design.

Dunn: Now that you’re in it, what’s been the biggest surprise or the most valuable part so far? Anything you’ll carry forward into your next project, or even your career?

Ethan Chung: I would say the most valuable part of the experience so far was learning how AI can play a role in PCB design. We’ve worked on some previous projects that involved PCB design, and one of the most tedious things about the entire process was sifting through all the datasheets to find the right part. And for this project, we tried using AI, like Perplexity, and, of course, ChatGPT, to do the searching for us. I think it worked really well, and it streamlined the process of finding parts. I can totally see us using this strategy in the future.

Alex: The most valuable part of this experience for me was learning more about PCB design and using Altium (PCB design software tool). I am definitely taking PCB design and Altium into future projects and potentially future careers. Another thing that stands out to me is building relationships with my team. I could not have done this challenge without them, and they’ve been really encouraging and motivating.

Dunn: Working as a team is its own learning curve. What’s something you didn’t expect about collaborating with this group?

Alex: Before coming into this competition, we were all already friends. And a big thing we learned working together is that having bonds or friendships outside of this project, or any other projects, really helped push our design and ideas forward. Sometimes it was hard to find motivation to work on this with other things going on during the summer, but every time I was working on our PCB or documentation or anything with someone in our group, it didn’t really feel like work. It was just really easy to bounce ideas off of each other, and having people you respect working with you was really motivating.

Dunn: Has this experience shifted your career goals? How do you think about working in hardware and electronics now?

Ethan: I think it pushed me towards wanting a career in PCB design. In the first round of the challenge, when we were close to the finished design, I had a habit of going into the 3D view in Altium to admire the PCB. It feels so satisfying seeing our hard work coming together, and that feeling makes me want to pursue this kind of career.

Kevin: It didn’t really affect my career plans. I’m a mechanical engineer. But real talk, I understand it now and see the vision of how we can be interdisciplinary across engineering.

Alex: I was already really interested in PCB design and fabrication, and this challenge has given me more insight into what a future career in electronics might look like and feel like. Moving forward from this challenge, I want to continue building things that interest me, and I am really excited and interested in working professionally on hardware design or something similar in the future.

Dunn: Wrapping up your first round of PCB design is no small thing. What was that like? Any standout challenges or proud moments?

Kevin: The deadline was pretty stressful—not going to lie. We checked over the doc at least five times before submitting it. I’m sure that Alex and Ethan can talk about their challenges making the PCBs. A proud moment was definitely naming our robot, KALE, like the vegetable. We took the initials of each of our names and put it together. We have a team logo too.

Alex: For me, the entire process felt really rewarding. I really liked how our team’s workflow moved from one part of the challenge to the next. It was definitely a little stressful towards the end with the extra hours put in, but our team did a really good job overall of managing the time given to us. The biggest challenge I had was trying to make everything on our board look clean and organized while still adhering to the design rules. And one thing I was really proud of was working on and finishing the schematic for our robot. I thought it looked really nice and organized. I really enjoy making schematics.

Ethan: Something I am very proud of is how we stepped out of our comfort zone. We have created PCBs in the past, and this time, we wanted to experiment with something new, so we created a rigid-flex PCB. It was definitely a learning process when figuring out how to do the layer stack for the flex portion. But after we got it figured out, going into the 3D view and watching the board flex felt so rewarding. I think it justified the hard work it took to get there.

Dunn: Looking ahead to the final pitch, what are you most excited to show off?

Kevin: Our robot design. I also really want to see how others designed theirs and tackled the problem.

Ethan: I'm really excited about showing our additional feature rigid-flex PCB. Originally, it wasn't something we had in mind. For our additional feature, we just wanted to add some encoders and an IMU to help the robot drive straight. However, we ran into an issue where the top of the encoders needed to face the magnet attached to the motor axle. We were brainstorming for a while and the best thing we came up with was to create an entirely new board that could bend as needed. It is something we worked hard on. I hope others are intrigued by it as well.

Alex: I'm looking forward to showing our robot in action and basically all of our team’s hard work during this challenge.

Dunn: Last question—what would you say to other students who are on the fence about jumping into something like this?

Kevin: Just do it. I think the pressure to do something is more fun than waiting or deciding if you want to join the competition. The best mindset coming into this is, “Sure, we don’t know much or maybe we're not ready for it, but that means we can learn a lot rather than nothing at all.” Another way to put it is you have nothing to lose, and so much to gain; it’s how I think about it.

Ethan: Definitely do it. It teaches so many valuable skills like how to use Altium, the ins and outs of CAD, and, probably, most importantly, how to work as a team. This probably sounds like a broken record, but working in a team is something every employed person will experience. Bouncing thoughts off each other, resolving conflicting ideas, etc., are all tasks that engineers will have to deal with, and I think this challenge is formatted in a way that helps develop this.

Alex: I highly recommend competing in something like this. Regardless of what happens, you will 100% learn a ton about whatever you’re working on, and learning is always amazing. It’s a really great way to apply what you’ve learned in school and to see the physical results of your work.

Eight teams are advancing into the finals, which will take place at SMTAI in Chicago in October. With lots of excitement and enthusiasm, in addition to the practical lessons and wisdom being taken away, the Bright Manufacturing Student Challenge is certainly a bright spot for workforce development. For more information, please reach out to Tara@smta.org.