Humber students have returned from the Skills Canada National Competition triumphant with a gold and silver medal.

The annual competition gives students an opportunity to show off the skills they've learned in their programs as they compete against their peers from across the country in complex challenges designed to showcase their expertise in various sectors. This year’s competition was held in Quebec City.

Grant Maddock and Cole Hunter won gold in the Mechatronics Team of Two division while Justin Paglia won silver in Electronics.

Paglia, who just finished his second year in the Electronics Engineering Technology program, has never participated in Skills at any level before this year and said he’s pretty pleased with winning gold at Skills Ontario followed by silver at the nationals.

“It was definitely a boost to my confidence to perform well because I was coming in at a disadvantage having never competed in Skills before,” said Paglia.

“The bronze and gold medal winners were both returning from last year,” continued Paglia. “They knew the drill as they had both won medals previously. I’m very proud and very pleased with the results.”

As part of the challenge Paglia had to program a microcontroller, find a pre-loaded error in a circuit, and design and assemble a circuit board.

As for taking part in Skills next year, Paglia says he’s in. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience and says he has set his sights on the nationals again.

Participation in Skills is already proving beneficial for his future career. Paglia says since the competition he’s had a few people reach out to him on LinkedIn with internship positions. While he already has a job lined up this summer, Paglia says it shows how participating has already been a benefit.