By Jason Ho
Horseradish and chili by-product; seemingly worthless units of waste. If UMD students inundated Testudo with piles of horseradish and chili by-product during finals week, the carnage of failing students would make President Loh weep. Fortunately, this was not the case and this supposed rubbish was turned into something of great use as Cohort 20’s very own Artemis Solutions unveiled in this year’s QUEST Conference. Solving the issue of Tulkoff and T.W. Garner Foods’ mounds of leftover sauce material, Artemis Solutions was able to develop a form of deer repellant, which utilizes the horseradish and chili by-product as the key agents. The repellent product works just as well as the brand-name products sold today and has been projected to earn several million dollars in revenue for both companies.
This is just one instance of what this year’s 490 students have been able to do. Whether it was developing quality cake pop containers that were protective yet financially feasible to formulating efficient floor designs to save a company millions in operations annually, what the 490 students were able to showcase was impressive to say the least. “I thought it was a great experience. We got a sneak peek into our future in Quest, since Quest is such a huge community it was like seeing a bunch of close friends in their big moment…we have huge footsteps to follow in” said Jessica Lewis of Cohort 23.
As this year’s event has shown, the QUEST Conference displays the culmination of the strenuous journey the 490 students endured that demonstrates why the QUEST Honors Program is one of the best on campus. The 490 students worked day in and day out from client site visits to intense problem-solving group sessions, and while the stress level at times skyrocketed, the 490 students kept the presentations highly professional and thorough.
The awardees of this year’s conference awards went to Artemis Solutions (Project of the Year) and The Thalesman (Poster of the Year). While these two groups received special recognition, all of Cohort 20 has set the bar to a new high and it is now up to Cohort 21 to respond to this challenge with a fresh set of projects that we all anticipate will amaze us yet again.
Check out pictures from the conference
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