Week 9: The End of Our Journey

Although this was our last week of work, there was a lot of it. Our first priority was to finish doing research on our industrial process. We had to find suppliers for our raw materials, turmeric and ethanol, which required comparing prices and finding a supplier that was the best fit for our process. We also had to determine which markets we would be selling to, and we chose vitamin stores. Then, we determined the price we would see our curcumin pills for by comparing the price other curcumin pills were sold for. We also determined environmental affects of our industrial design process.

The second priority was to complete our final report. We had written the rough draft during Week 7, so we had to resolve the corrections our professor gave us. We also incorporated our research from Weeks 7 and 8 to complete the report. Editing the report was somewhat difficult because we had to add in an appendix for our graphs and tables so that we could meet the 8-page limit. Other than that, we were able to complete the final report quickly and accurately.

Our third priority was our final oral presentation. We decided to base our final presentation off of our midterm presentation as most of the content was similar. Our information from Weeks 6, 7, and 8 were also included in the presentation as we worked to focus more on our industrial process design. We then recorded the presentation and submitted it for our classmates and professors to see.

Overall, this project taught our group a lot. We greatly improved our communication and teamwork skills—especially since we were working together remotely in separate physical locations. We also learned a lot about the engineering design process and what goes into creating an industrial process design. The focus on solid-liquid extractions and applications taught us a lot about a new type of chemical engineering process. This class and project was a great learning opportunity for us as aspiring chemical engineers and allowed us to expand our knowledge for future classes and jobs.