The Cal Poly SAMPE Club earned first place overall at the 2026 SAMPE Conference for International Student Competitions, held April 27-30 in Seattle. The club is Cal Poly’s student chapter of the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering, a professional organization focused on materials and advanced manufacturing.
The annual event brought students together to test their skills in composite materials through design and fabrication challenges. Cal Poly students competed in categories ranging from pickleball paddle design to carbon fiber, fiberglass and natural fiber beam competitions, with small teams developing both their entries and project posters.
The club’s strong overall performance reflected a year of preparation by students across the College of Engineering. The Cal Poly team included 24 mechanical engineering students, five aerospace engineering students, three civil engineering students and one materials engineering student.
Cal Poly students earned multiple top finishes, including first place in the Pickleball Paddle Competition by Donovan Furtado and second place by Caleb Singh and Conor Junge. In the Carbon Fiber I-Beam Competition, Bubba Ubey, Zachary Adzich, Carson Straub and Francis Patchell earned first place, while Carlos Perez, Jacky Liang and Wyatt Barnes took second.
Wyatt Barnes, Jacky Liang and Carlos Perez also earned first place in the Fiberglass I-Beam Competition and first place in the Best Poster Competition. Yosef Torres, Rosa Acevedo, Dominic Milian and Isla Sexton placed second in the Natural Fiber Beam Competition, while Jacky Liang, Carlos Perez, Wyatt Barnes and Yosef Torres placed second in the Open Design Competition.
The club received support from the College of Engineering, the Mechanical Engineering Department, Student Development and Belonging, the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering, and the Composites and Advanced Materials Expo. The team also credited adviser Nezam Elghandour, student leadership and composites lab support for helping students prepare, build and compete at a high level.
