Students from Humber Polytechnic travelled to Germany to show off their prodigious talents as part of a friendly skills competition at the Hannover Messe 2025 event.
NGen, Canada's advanced manufacturing global innovation network, Festo Didactic, a leading provider of technical education equipment and solutions, and Humber partnered to demonstrate the strength of Canadian mechatronics skills at Hannover Messe. The collaboration featured a skills competition showcasing top students from the leading Canadian post-secondary institutions Humber, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and Conestoga College. There was also a German team.
The friendly skills competition featured four teams of two competitors. Humber's team was Grant Maddock and Cole Hunter. Last year, the pair won gold in the Mechatronics Team of Two division at the Skills Canada National Competition.
Hunter, a second-year Electromechanical Engineering Technology student, said they had a chance to meet their Canadian and German peers and spend some time getting to know each other before the competition started. They even had a chance to race go-karts with the German team.
"Once we got into Hannover Messe, it got super competitive even though it was friendly and we were all friends," said Hunter, who admits he's a pretty competitive person. "The level that everyone brought was extremely high and we were impressed by how strong all the teams were."
There were lots of late nights and early mornings, but it was worth it, said Hunter. They got to explore Germany and make some new friends while using the skills and talents they're learning in the classroom in the competition.
Hunter was intrigued by the German approach to mechatronics and found it interesting to see their take, which he said differed somewhat from their North American counterparts.
The participating institutions were selected for their strong mechatronics programs and history of producing highly skilled graduates. Humber, led by Neal Mohammed, has participated in provincial, national and international Skills mechatronics competitions and, over the last two decades, has won 47 medals - 29 gold, 14 silver and four bronze.
"Mechatronic skills are in high demand. Every industry needs these skills to keep their operations maintained and competitive. Employers are coming to Humber before our students graduate months in advance to hire them," said Mohammed, director of the Barrett Centre for Technology Innovation. "Canada has the capacity to prepare and train students with the right skills and we demonstrated this at the Hannover Messe event."
The competition challenge, which focused on an automotive theme, required students to design and build an assembly line to sort vehicles by colour and deliver them to specific locations. This was done to mimic real-world scenarios.
In addition to the competition, NGen hosted a panel discussion featuring leaders from the three Canadian post-secondary institutions, the German team and Festo to discuss the importance of mechatronics education and workforce development.
Hunter tried Skills competitions for the first time while at Humber. He enjoys the process of designing and building systems that are efficient and work well in their environment. Hunter said Skills has been a boon for his education as well as he's learning about devices - such as sensors or pneumatics - through Skills before they're even discussed in his program.
Skills participation is also a wonderful addition to a resume, he added.
Hunter and Maddock, who received the highest score overall at the Hannover Messe competition, will be competing in the 2025 Skills Ontario Competition happening May 5-7 at the Toronto Congress Centre with a goal of winning and qualifying for the Nationals. The ultimate mission is to compete at the WorldSkills International Shanghai 2026 Competition.
