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If manufacturing has an image problem, the young winners of the contest helped dispel that notion at an award ceremony Tuesday night at the Santander Performing Arts Center in Reading. Many of the 2½-minute videos captured the environment where these companies operate: clean, bright cavernous warehouses that use the latest high-tech equipment.

Seven winning teams of eighth-grade students from schools in Berks and Schuylkill counties were announced at a ceremony that was part Academy Awards and part pep rally.

Winners were greeted with the unbridled enthusiasm of hundreds of youthful screams and handed a weighty trophy designed and manufactured by the Berks Career and Technology Center and Reading Muhlenberg Career & Technology Center.

Faced with a looming shortage of skilled workers needed to fill millions of high-skilled manufacturing jobs, the video contest was created by the Manufacturing Institute, a Washington, D.C. based-advocacy organization for the nation’s manufacturing companies.

The idea is to encourage more young people to pursue careers in manufacturing and to revise outdated ideas of manufacturing as a dirty, gritty industry of previous generations.

In Berks and Schuylkill, 19 manufacturers were each paired with one of the 19 teams comprised of about 100 students and their teachers. The students were given the video equipment they needed to film a short video that describes the manufacturing process and encourages students to consider a career in manufacturing.

For example, the video by Reading South Middle School team, which won the award for Outstanding Creativity, asked Peter Connors, CEO of Remcon Plastics Inc. in Reading, why someone should pursue a manufacturing career.

“Because it’s really exciting,” Connors said.

“The world around us is full of stuff that we use every day – everything from a cereal bowl to a telephone. And you don’t think about somebody’s got to make all that stuff.”

Connors added: “Find the thing that you really enjoy doing and there’s a way to apply it in manufacturing.”

Jack Pfunder, CEO of Manufacturers Resource Center in Hanover Township, Lehigh County, which developed the regional contest in Pennsylvania, told the audience that manufacturers need to work with schools to get the kind of courses students need to study in order to work in manufacturing.

State Sen. Judith Schwank told the audience she was heartened to see girls involved in the program and to see women in senior management in the videos.

Schwank said the videos were “amazing, funny and memorable.”

The winning schools and the companies:

Outstanding Overall Program: Muhlenberg Middle School and Appeeling Fruit Inc. of Dauberville, Berks County.

Outstanding Videography: Schuylkill Haven Area Middle School and SAPA Extrusion of Cressona, Schuylkill County.

Outstanding Creativity: Reading Southern Middle School and Remcon Plastics of Reading.

Outstanding Cool: Wilson West Middle School and Sweet Street Desserts Inc. of Reading, Berks County.

Outstanding Educational Value: Wilson Southern Middle School and Cambridge-Lee Industries LLC. of Ontelaunee Township, Berks County.

Outstanding Marketing Plan: Reading Northwest Middle School and Carpenter Technology Corp. of Wyomissing, Berks County.

Viewers’ Choice: Tamaqua Area Middle School and Highwood USA of Homewood, Schuylkill County.