PITTSBURG, Kans. — For the second year in a row, an area university student out performs peers from major universities not just in a heavy metal competition. But it doesn’t have anything to do with music.

Last year, Austin Jacks was part of a team of students from Pittsburg State that won first place in a steel casting competition where they made this steel version of Thor’s hammer.
This year, he finished in third place, all by himself, in the third annual “Cast In Steel” competition in Columbus, Ohio.

“There’s a lot of challenges and a lot of thought process and actually engineering that goes into a contest like this and it was a good way of challenging students and giving then hands on experience to test what they’ve learned and actually compete in kind of a friendly but still competitive environment, I had a lot of fun with it,” said Austin Jacks, PSU Senior.

He made this celtic leaf sword based on religious and mythological ornamentation. But one of his instructors isn’t surprised in the least when it comes to his student’s success.

“And the judges are wondering where his team is and he said well it’s just me and they were kind of surprised that he produced this fantastic sword and it’s just you. One of the judges was so impressed he called him out during the awards ceremony and said where all of you had teams of four or five, he had a team of one,” said Russ Rosmait, PSU Manufacturing Engineering Technology.

Rosmait says his student beat out entire teams from Texas A&M and Cal Poly to name a few.

“Those are big, extremely funded schools with huge teams of engineering students and we can compete with them,” added Rosmait.

And in Jack’s case, can beat them.