International industry challenge leads to gold for Sask. Polytech student

Several Saskatchewan Polytechnic Instrumentation Engineering Technology students from Moose Jaw participated in an international industry challenge with one bringing home gold.

The event was the 10th annual International Society of Automation (ISA) - SAIT Student games, held in Calgary.

“It was kind of industry-related troubleshooting challenges,” Sask. Polytechnic student Curtis Dammann told CTV News.

“We basically had to put our knowledge to the test and try and figure it out.”

Dammann said students were divided into teams with a representative from each school on each team. He said there were six challenges offered and teams were expected to select and complete four.

His team won gold, which he said was an incredible experience.

“Winning the gold definitely gave me a great sense of accomplishment and it kind of validated all the hard work and effort to get to this point,” he said.

“To come out of it winning the gold medal at an international competition really proved to myself that I'm able and capable to succeed in this field.”

He said that top students were selected from each school’s graduating class to participate.

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“I had a teammate from BCIT, a teammate from Spain and a local teammate from SAIT at the Calgary school there. So it was quite an interesting dynamic,” he said.

“We had to learn what our strengths and weaknesses were and put them together and how to communicate quickly. So that was a challenge in itself just getting comfortable with each other and that's what really makes the event quite an experience. You kind of walk away with lifelong friends.”

Dammann said taking the program at Sask. Polytech was a change of career for him. He was working as an audio engineer with Long and McQuade when he looked into the program.

“It just kind of ticked off all the boxes for me it had electrical, it had coding lots of computer stuff,” he explained.

“Just the more I read about it, the more I was really interested in it and reading about opportunities in the future for the trade was very enticing as well. So that's kind of how I gravitated towards it.”

He said he would recommend the program to others interested in the field.

“It’s a very, very technical analytical field, and it's very challenging, but it's very rewarding,” Dammann said.

“The future's looking pretty bright for this specific area in this trade. So I'm really excited to see where it goes.”