Students from CalPoly, San Jose State, Virginia Tech Take Top Prize at the Amazing Packaging Race

The Amazing Packaging Race took over the PACK EXPO Las Vegas and Healthcare Packaging EXPO 2017 show floor today and three students from Team 17 outplayed 19 other teams to win new iPads, courtesy of Emerson’s ASCO^TM, the event sponsor.

PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, owner and producer of the PACK EXPO portfolio of trade shows, hosted the eighth annual event.

Team 17 — Kevin Zhu (San Jose State University); Nicholas Murakas (California Polytechnic State University); Jayne Little (Virginia Tech) — won with a mixture of strategy and skill, perfecting a balance of completing tasks and reaching the most exhibitors.

In second place was Team 15 — Landon Holbert (Virginia Tech); Vanessa Hinrichs (University of Wisconsin-Stout); Brittany Hatfield (Michigan State University); Marybeth Greene (Indiana State University).

“PACK EXPO is the largest classroom for packaging technologies, and thanks to the participating exhibitors, we were able to provide students studying packaging and other related fields with hands-on experience that they cannot get anywhere else,” says Glen Long, senior vice president, PMMI.

The 19 participating companies were spread out among the nearly 900,000 net square feet of exhibit space: 3M; APPMA; Barry-Wehmiller; Bosch Packaging Technology, Inc.; Cozzoli Machine Company; Dorner Manufacturing Corp.; Frazier & Son; Garvey Corporation; HMC Products, Inc; Intelligrated; Langguth America Ltd.; Matrox Imaging; Morrison Container Handling; OMAC; Plexpack Corp.; Polypack, Inc; Shurtape Technologies, LLC; Siemens Industry and Sonics & Materials Inc.

A total of 11 PMMI Partner Schools were on board for the contest: California Polytechnic State University, Clemson University, Hennepin Technical College, Indiana State University, Michigan State University, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Virginia Tech, Purdue University Northwest, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University and San Jose State University.