Industry Connections Report | 2019

BRING YOUR PROJECT TO US

FACULTY AND STUDENT RESEARCH

The Discovery Center leverages the exceptional creative and technical skills of UW-Stout faculty, staff and students to develop innovative solutions to real world problems. Through collaborative interdisciplinary projects, we challenge students to apply classroom knowledge and problem-solving skills through interaction with other students, faculty and industry. Faculty, staff and students work individually or in teams to develop an understanding of the research question or industry challenge, determine and weigh potential solutions and execute implementation of the selected solution. With focus on research, the Discovery Center continues to help industry partners solve current and future challenges, along with assisting entrepreneurs as they venture forward to develop, design and build prototypes and address myriad business challenges to help their venture move forward. In the past, we have served food manufacturers with safety concerns and product developments. We have assisted component packaging systems engineers with plastics and product testing and analysis. This helped to identity quality issues and potential financial gains for the company. Working with multiple manufacturers and entrepreneurs, the industrial design faculty, for example, has developed designs and prototypes as an outcome of the creative design process, which helped to solve company problems and/or grow their business. As a center, our collaborative nature is key to the success of applied research for both UW-Stout and our industry partners.

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