Heard in the Channel: 30 Students Win Scholarships at Avnet Tech Games

Avnet, Inc. celebrated another successful Avnet Tech Games competition in Arizona this month, giving $30,000 in scholarships to area students. The awards went to students competing at the April 12 Tech Games event at The University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Ariz., as well as to those who competed on a national level in the Spring Virtual Avnet Tech Games online.

More than 75 teams of students competed in the onsite and virtual Avnet Tech Games, including eight Arizona community colleges and universities: Arizona State University, ITT Technical Institute, seven Maricopa County Community Colleges, Northern Arizona University, The University of Advancing Technology, and University of Arizona.

The Tech Games are an annual multidisciplinary technology competition comprised of eight events. Teams of students test their knowledge, creativity, decision-making, problem-solving, and technical skills to create projects that advance business and improve our quality of life. Projects this year included creating a solar-powered water-pumping system, racing to build a computer using refurbished parts, and troubleshooting issues in the Windows 7 operating system.

Since the Avnet Tech Games began in 2006, nearly $300,000 in scholarship money and prizes have been awarded to hundreds of the approximately 2,680 students and 215 faculty members who have participated in the competitions. This year, 30 students received scholarships of $1,000 each.

“The Avnet Tech Games provide a great opportunity for students to test their technical and strategy skills by applying what they have learned in the classroom to real-life scenarios,” said Joal Redmond, vice president of public relations for Avnet, Inc. “Students also had the opportunity to improve their communications skills by participating in a networking workshop and then practice those skills by meeting with Avnet and sponsor executives during a networking hour. Students win, schools win and business wins with the Avnet Tech Games.”

In other industry news:

Digi-Key Corporation continues its efforts toward sustainability and environmental management. The company announced a series of green initiatives, including ISO 14001:2004 certification, environmentally friendly packaging, company-wide policies and best practices around reducing energy, waste, and paper usage, as well as increased recycling awareness.
TTI, Inc. promoted Wade McNiel to vice president, sales development. McNiel previously served as director, TTI Business Development Group.
East Coast Microwave Distributors announced a new authorized distribution agreement with MECA Electronics Inc. to supply the manufacturer’s line of USA-made Rugged & Reliable RF/Microwave passive DC–20 GHz microwave components and solutions globally.
RFMW, Ltd. now offers design and sales support for wideband, DC-3.5GHz GaN transistors from TriQuint.
Avnet Electronics Marketing announced that the Embedded Software Store, an online information and e-commerce-based website dedicated to the embedded design community, has opened up its site in support of other CPU architectures beyond the ARM architecture. The store will now sell other cores, including MSP430, AVR, Power Architecture and more. As part of its initial expansion, engineers can now find additional cores from Embedded Software Store suppliers including Freescale® Semiconductor, Renesas Electronics America Inc., Interniche Technologies Inc. and Rowebots Research Inc.
Peerless Electronics is now an authorized stocking distributor for Hoffman Enclosures, a division of Pentair.