Middle school students from 31 schools in Carbon, Monroe, Lehigh, Northampton and Bucks counties, their families, educators and business professionals gathered Tuesday night for the awards presentation of the "What's So Cool About Manufacturing?" video contest.

The awards night was held at Arts Quest on the Steel Stacks campus and included a Cupcake Wars competition.Students from the culinary departments at Carbon Career and Technical Institute, Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School, Career Institute of Technology, Lehigh Career and Technical Institute and the Monroe Career and Technical Institute competed for the best cupcake. Like dessert, the award was presented last with a reception afterward for everyone to sample the event competing recipes.The "What's So Cool About Manufacturing?" video contest was developed by the Manufacturers Resource Center to introduce students to the world of manufacturing."General manufacturing is not on their radar," Jack Pfunder, president and chief executive officer of MRC, said."In order to break that cycle, students need to break that cycle and they do it by visiting the campuses."Secretary Dennis Davin, from the Pennsylvanian Department of Economic and Community Development, said the state is the eighth-largest manufacturer in the country in terms of gross domestic product.The average wage for manufacturing employees is $72,500, he said.When people think of manufacturing, they tend to think of it as low-skilled, dirty jobs, Davins said, but "that's not a true representation of many.""By 2025, 2 million manufacturing jobs may go unfilled," he said, due to baby boomers retiring, and fewer young people going into that work.The eighth-grade students began working on their video projects in October and were partnered with a manufacturer to feature. They met with employees at the companies and shot video footage with GoPro cameras. Then it was onto hours of whittling down the video footage to just two and half minutes to spotlight what they thought was cool about manufacturing.WinnersPleasant Valley Middle School won for outstanding marketing of the United Envelope in Mount Pocono. Northern Lehigh Middle School tied with Saucon Valley Middle School for Outstanding Educational Value. Northern Lehigh was partnered with ProtoCAM in Allentown.With more than 110,000 votes cast online by the public, the first-place award for Viewers Choice went to Northampton for its video on Dynalene Inc. in Coplay. Also placing in the top four schools out of 31 were Pleasant Valley at second place, Nazareth at third, and Pen Argyl took fourth place.The Outstanding Overall Program went to Wilson Area Middle School for its video about Orbel Corp. in Wind Gap.Also participating in the video competition were middle school students from Lehighton Area School District featuring KME Kovatch in Nesquehoning, Jim Thorpe featuring Blue Ridge Pressure Casting in Lehighton, Panther Valley for Technical Process and Engineering Inc. in Lehighton, and Palmerton for Ametek Westchester Plastics in Nesquehoning."I am knocked out by how creative you are," said Teri Haddad, senior vice president of production and education at PBS39 WLVT. "We're helping to create the next generation of digital storytellers."Cupcake warsLast but not least, the Cupcake Wars. The grand prize went to Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School with Lehigh Career and Technical Institute as runner-up. Carlos Bakery in the Sands Casino served as the judges.A.J. Burke, the executive chef culinary instructor at CCTI, said his students went with a carnival theme and narrowed their selection down to two recipes from five. They features cotton candy and root beer float cupcakes."I thought they were all great," Burke said. But "I don't know if I could eat any more cupcakes."No problem, the public took care of that.Mike Hill of Bath attended the awards ceremony with his family and liked the root beer cupcake the best."The flavor tastes just like that of the root beer candy, which is phenomenal," he said."