ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The winning schools have been announced for the What’s So Cool About Manufacturing® contest.
The flagship competition is held annually in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley area, where the first contest took place in 2014.
The 2026 contest featured schools from Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, and Carbon counties and was produced by the Manufacturers Resource Center (MRC) in Allentown, the event’s website says.
The What’s So Cool About Manufacturing® contests are supported regionally by their sponsors and partners, the event website says. Production support is provided for several Pennsylvania contests by eMediaWorks in Center Valley, PA, and additional support in Pennsylvania is provided by Sahl Communications and EmpowerStar Enterprises.
3/25/2026 | The annual What’s So Cool About Manufacturing® video contests excite students to explore cool manufacturing careers and produce profiles of companies in their communities. Judges in each regional contest bestow awards and each contest features an online vote for its Viewers Choice Award.
Here are the winners:
Outstanding Overall Program: Saucon Valley(Crayola)
Viewers Choice: Springhouse (Mack Trucks)
Outstanding Videography: Nazareth Area (B. Braun Medical Inc.)
Outstanding Creativity: Northampton Area(Polymer Contours, INC)
Outstanding Editing: Lower Macungie (Sharp)
Outstanding Cool: East Hills(Just Born Quality Confections)
Outstanding Team Spirit: Northwestern Lehigh (FMI)
Outstanding Educational Value: Northeast (Ocean Spray)
Outstanding Outreach Plan: Lehighton Area(AMPAL, Inc.)
Outstanding Brand Placement: Catasauqua (Bosch Rexroth Corporation)
Outstanding Career Pathway: J.T. Lambert (Weiler Abrasives Group)
Best CTE Story: Broughal (Stanley Black & Decker)
Sweet Manufacturing: Career Institute of Technology