As the time for the project approaches, it is important for students to know something about the business and its products. Students research the company and write a short paper about it. The next step is the first site visit. Each student is matched with an employee of the business who will serve as mentor. Then students receive a written description of the problem as well as an explanation of their assigned department's role in working on the solution.
Students spend seven days with their mentors and learn how to function as a team member.
They accumulate data, get samples to test back at the school chemistry lab, and establish their own hypotheses. Best of all, they get their hands dirty and see firsthand how chemistry applies to real-life problems. Last year, Interprint presented the students with the following problem. A customer wanted to print a hardwood paper design called Mary Maple on a 200-pound paper, much heavier than Interprint had previously used. The customer also wanted to use new red inks.