NAMPA — Benjamin Campbell is entering his junior year at Northwest Nazarene University, but he's already made history by helping design the satellite MakerSat-1, which is planned to launch in December.
He is now heading to the "The World Skills USA competition."
"Somehow I just ended up kept moving my way up and then ended up being the champion for mechanical engineering, technical drafting and got selected," said Campbell.
Joined by two other students from the Gem State and 22 students from the United States, the team will head to Kazan, Russia on Sunday to compete against other countries.
"It was total god moment just felt like, ah. It was really really cool and it's a privilege to be selected to represent Idaho and and the United States at this giant world competition."
Campbell says he's been training for the last year and a half by doing test projects such as 3-D modeling. He says one of the biggest challenges learning to use metric system instead of the U.S. measurement system.
As for the future, Campbell hopes to go to graduate school and work with NASA. He eventually wants to start his own company.
"It also would be good to get a medal over there, kind of show the world that America actually knows what we're doing and we mean business when we come to compete."
