Everything that we learn throughout our time in QUEST all comes together in the capstone course, BMGT/ENES490H. The finale of this course is the QUEST conference, where teams present all their hard work during the semester through both their poster presentation and on-stage audience presentations. I had the pleasure of speaking with Annushka Aliev (Cohort 37), a member of the team who won the Most Outstanding Capstone Award, and Abby Bond (Cohort 37), whose team won the Best Poster Award.

Cohort 37

Aliev is a civil engineering major who worked with SX Industries this semester for her capstone project. The team aimed to improve SX’s inventory planning and manufacturing scheduling. In the past, SX made production decisions based on customer promises and intuition. Aliev’s team sought out to make that better through an extensive forecasting model that would project future sales, calculate required materials, and determine machine run time. SX can use this model along with a safety stock calculator to know exactly when to replenish their inventory.

Most Outstanding Capstone: SX Industries

Aliev was kind enough to let me in on the keys to success that led her team to be ready for conference. First, she said that her team started working on their final poster weeks in advance, so that when it came time to prepare for the conference, they were already finished. Communication was the next key to a successful team. “Things change VERY quickly in 490H projects, and if a conscious effort is not made to keep people up to date, then the team will struggle,” she said. Her team was always on top of making sure they were always on the same page. 

The team met every single day the week leading up to the conference to make sure they earned the award. Finally, the most insightful piece of advice given by Aliev was to also rely on the people who aren’t on your team. QUEST is a space where we are all competing to make each other better. Before presenting to an audience of friends and family, Aliev said that she presented to other members of her cohort, who asked difficult questions to make sure that when they walked up on stage they would be successful.

Best Poster: Capital i

Winning the Best Poster Award is no easy feat. This semester the team working with the health tech management solutions company, Capital i, made a poster that was visually stunning and interactive with their QR code. Abby Bond, a Bioengineering major and QUEST Social Co-lead, was on the winning team. They went to Houston for a health tech management expo, visited multiple hospitals that work with their client, and spoke with several stakeholders to craft solutions for her client. They came up with an extensive framework for mobile medical equipment utilization monitoring and forecasting models.

Abby and her team “secretly” started working on their poster early in the semester. They created multiple different iterations and their poster evolved as their project evolved. They began with a hospital room, an infusion pump, and a bed included to tie it in Capital i’s tech health industry. From there, they added small details, like a bear in a cowboy hat, to pay homage to their Houston trip, and a QR code to make it a more immersive experience. However, Bond stated the reason why their poster stood out was because the design complimented their solutions. She said “regardless of how cool the poster looked, we knew how important the content was. We made sure that our design evolved with how we decided to present our information.”

Congratulations to Cohort 37 on a very successful QUEST conference!