NFPA Fluid Power Challenge Launches new website

by Lynn Beyer, NFPA Director of Workforce Development Programs

I was moderately upset when Instagram recently changed its format. This social media site has been a friend to me, and it hurts to see an old friend that you love so much change! You will not mind the change at all when you see the new Fluid Power Challenge website. Part of our continued and growing focus on education and workforce programs, the site is bright, clean, and easy to navigate. Very soon we will also be launching a Facebook page to further engage and grow the community of Fluid Power Challenge participants.

There are some other changes to our workforce programs as well. Great changes. These changes will bring a pathway for students to follow in order to find, learn, and get involved with fluid power as a career. How? The NFPA Fluid Power Challenge brand will now include three exciting Challenges:

• The Fluid Power Action Challenge – This is the current Fluid Power Challenge event for middle school students in which teams build their own fluid power mechanism and compete.
• The Fluid Power Robotics Challenge – This will be a scholarship to a high school senior who uses pneumatics in his or her FIRST® Robotics Competition robot to use in an engineering course of study.
• The Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge – Formerly the Chainless Challenge, this is a program that challenges college engineering students to redesign a traditional bicycle using hydraulics as the mode of power transmission.

We have new logos for these Challenges and pages on the site that describe in detail what these great opportunities are, and how they can benefit teachers and students in a big way.

Old friends can change…but many times they get even better.

Please check out the new site at http://nfpahub.com/fpc/.