Collaborating with College Students
I forgot what it was like to be a college student, but the advanced engineering students at the University of Hawai`i, Department of Mechanical Engineering, reminded me just how much this next generation has to contribute!!
It all started with “the Oreo guy.” That’s what we called a chocolate friend who came into the shop for Oreos over the years. All we knew was he loved chocolate covered Oreos. We later came to find out he was a professor at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa right down the road from us!
Professor Ray, (now that we know his name :p) teaches in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and one conversation after another in the chocolate shop, led to a collaboration with the advanced engineering students in his lab.
After just one semester together, his past students created a custom bar mould that we now use in our shop to make solid chocolate bars! And this semester, his students created our custom Christmas designed chocolate bar for the holidays! And just in time!
His students have come to the shop and our kitchen where they got to see first hand the process and how we use the moulds they create. We went to their class to listen to a presentation on their thought process and how they came up with their designs, created prototypes and are refining it based on feedback.
And along the way we ate chocolates of course since we had to test if chocolates could pop out of their food-safe moulds and come out clean and beautiful. ;)
We’re also having a friendly “competition” where a minimum of one selected design (not the Christmas one you will see) will have an opportunity to be on our chocolate shelf in March of next year and they could win even more chocolates!
To put work and school together to benefit both parties is what I call a sweet win-win relationship!
Thank you so much to Professor Ray, Mayah, Cole, Allen, Justin, Linda, Lillian, Jansen, and Joshua! We have truly enjoyed learning and growing together!
erin’s tip
Get to know your customers. You never know if you and “the Oreo guy” may be able to help each other out and build an even sweeter relationship along the way.
