Students from Western Washington University, including two from Mercer Island, recently took part in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Manufacturing Challenge in California in March.

The team worked to create a manufacturing process for an item, this year the team needed to build a composite tackle box for fishing flies which was made out of carbon fiber. The WWU team took second place overall.

Mercer Island students Alex Streck and Nathan Nudelam participated with the team, but did not attend the conference. Streck is majoring in manufacturing engineering technology, while Nudelam is majoring in plastics engineering technology.