Your tasks

Your assignment for the day is clear: to make a product. As teams, you will plan, design, test, and produce, and finally hold the result of your work in your hands, present, admire, marvel at, praise, eye it critically, and proudly take it home.

You decide whether you want to be a designer, researcher, technician, or communicator! For those who cannot make up their minds, there is our Checkup. It might make it easier for you to decide after you know what is expected from the different teams – actually quite a bit because we count on your ambitious commitment, your spontaneous creativity, your relentless research drive, and your practical skills!

In the Design Team

When it comes to planning and designing, your skills as a designer are in high demand. It’s you who determines the look of the product – red, azure blue, pink, or neon yellow… Sure, that won’t be an easy decision. However, when you are knee-deep in all those style issues, you should not loose the market trends out of sight. And you should coordinate your work with the other teams to make sure your ideas can be realized. It’s always smart to give a hint to the communications team, and commission a cool ad, or even a commercial for your product design.
That’s a packed agenda, but as a team, you will make it and be able to say at the end, „Awesome product. Daily mission accomplished!“

In the Research Team

Putting on a white lab coat and becoming a researcher for one day, is that even possible? Doesn’t research mean tinkering with things for years, trying them out, rejecting, thinking it over, calculating, finding proofs, only to get the Nobel Prize at the age of 80?
At Baylab plastics, one day is sufficient. Well, it won’t earn you the Nobel Prize but at the end of your day as a researcher, you will hold a real product in your hands that you made entirely on your own.
You must make important decisions about the right choice of materials and the optimal processing. How? Though tensile or tear resistance tests, for example, or the determination of the residual moisture of materials. Maybe having a closer look with the microscope will also help you. You might also have to deal with additional challenges, such as the design team having its mind set on special surface structures, the technology team still struggling with the operational parameters of the injection-molding machine, or the communications team approaching you with an urgent interview request for your school’s website.
Therefore cooperation is not only needed in your team but also among the teams! Because the goal is to turn a handful of plastic granules into a product together – one that you can show off with and that can be used in real life!

In the Technology Team

You will be amazed today! We will trust you with operating a hyper modern injection-molding machine! These machines are filled with plastics granule on one end, and what comes out at the other end is your product. This, in short, is the high-speed summary of your day at the Baylab plastics. In slow motion, however, it’s not quite as easy. There you have to contend with designers and their crazy ideas that will make you sweat. Because in order to realize their color and pattern ideas, you must make yourself familiar with the functioning, parameters and operation of the injection-molding machine. You also need to verify whether you have enough raw materials available for a whole product series. You will communicate with the research team about the properties of the material. In the meantime, the communications team is sneaking in a photo shoot for the presentation of your day at the Baylab plastics. You need to keep cool! But you can be sure that your commitment will be rewarded at the end – with a product that you have made all by yourself.

In the Communications Team

A truly exciting task is waiting for you. You will coordinate, support, document, and present the development and manufacturing of your own product! A day at Baylab plastics offers a ton of interesting things to report about. What do you want to document and how, and where should it be published? Do you want to profile the teams, feature the product or document your own day at Baylab plastics? What’s best: article, interview, or video? For the school newspaper, the school’s website, on a CD, or as a Powerpoint presentation? 

Everything is possible! In addition to writing, taking photos or shooting film, you support the other teams. For example, you can initiate a survey on behalf of the design team to scout the latest trends. You may also manage to design a creative ad for the product. What you need is the right instinct and tone so that the communication between the teams runs smoothly. Because only when all parties involved work well together, there will be a result that makes everyone proud. The participation certificate that the communications team can issue might help you later when you’re looking for a job.

In the Financial Team

Are you in 11th, 12th, or 13th grade? Then you can participate in the cost planning of your product. What are the production costs with this type of machines? How much do the employees earn? What’s the rent or price of the production facility, laboratory, and equipment? Once you have determined these, things will really start. Where do you have to optimize to reduce the production costs? What’s your strategy if you can only successfully offer your product in the market at a much lower price than you thought? You are dealing with hardcore daily business here! You will certainly find it very interesting to see how much it costs to manufacture a product!
And it gets even more exciting when you must find a price that fits the market. While you are doing all this, you experience what it means to be responsible for staff and the company.