TeamMawan – Page 2 – CA Work Experience Program

Day 6: Presentation Work

Today was the day where the final presentation would be thrown into action. As instructed by Mr. Self, we were to conceptualize our findings and present the different types of markets and customer personas specific to Vector Textiles. With that, we got to work. Overall, today was productive, but with a little time leftover, we decided to humor ourselves with a few funny images.

In all seriousness, we managed to create a viable outline for our final presentation. Highlighting all the possible markets and creating an appealing design was our top priorities. Mr. Self wanted the presentation to be a mix of education and minimal words, so we struck a balance by putting bullet points and pictures with every slide. It was a pretty uneventful day since we were just researching and putting together the PowerPoint. We kept in touch with Mr. Self over Slack and headed home for the day. I am excited to finalize our information to present to Mr. Self!

Day 5: THE LAB

Today we were scheduled to go to a NC State laboratory and take a tour of a lab. To be as economically efficient as possible, Amy Han and I carpooled there. We put in the address and were off to find the mosquito lab. As we arrived, we were confused and couldn’t find the lab. But, we persevered, and continued to the dirt path greeting us as we arrived at our “destination”. Our GPS ended up taking us to the edge of a lake, and we were bamboozled. We turned around, and it turned out we were in a restricted employee area. This meant that there was a closed gate at the exit, and we didn’t know what to do. Luckily however, it was a motion sensor gate and we were able to get out.

We finally arrived to the correct destination and a grad student, Grayson, gave us a tour of the laboratory. He answered our questions, and this was an overall good experience.

Day 4: MARKET RESEARCH

Today was mainly a day for on-the-ground market research. We decided to yet again divide into groups of two and travel to REI and BPS. Scott and I went to BPS and asked associates and customers on what they would think about clothing that was mosquito resistant and chemical-free. Results were outstandingly positive. Many people were interested, and we even kept a few people for a conversation about the textile and the importance of its development. When we were done, Scott and I went to the local Chick-fil-a to refuel before we headed back to HQ Raleigh. Upon our arrival to our homebase, we added today’s survey information to our wide range of data points. These in-person surveys were essential for receiving relevant data with potential customers. After we organized all of our data, we analyzed it and continued to do more research.

Vector Textiles Day 5

Today was the day of the tour at the entomology lab at NC State. We arrived at the building at 10 o’clock on the dot and first got to sit down with the professor and hear him and Mr. Self talk for a little bit. This helped a lot for my understanding of how the business works and what they are exactly trying to do. After they were done talking, a graduate student named Grayson gave us a tour of the entire building. We got to see all sorts of machinery such as two different centrifuges and water distillers. We also got to go into the breeding room for mosquitos where Grayson just stuck his arm into a box of them. We also got to see some of what they were working on but we were not allowed to take pictures and I don’t think I am able to talk about it. This trip was really exciting and helped to give me insight into more of what the professors are trying to accomplish.

Mr. Self’s dog Lyda. She is completely attached to him and he takes her everywhere!

A box of mosquitos that Grayson had previously experimented on and was keeping alive.

My workspace after lunch, we are no longer in the conference rooms!

Day 5

Team Mawan assembled at the NC State Entomology Lab where we toured the labs that Vector Textiles’ weave was tested. At the lab there was an abundance of mosquito boxes that had hundreds of mosquitoes flying around that they use to test different bug repellent and mosquito and tick impenetrable clothing. It was particularly cool to get to see the place where all the behind-the-scenes magic happens. We got to see all the lab equipment and got a thorough explanation of what many of the items were. We were led by a student, who was working on his Ph.D. at NC State, that was an expert in entomology and bio-molecular chemistry. He showed us some of the outstanding technology that he uses to conduct his experiments and showed us how he conducts his mosquito experiments.

After our time at the lab, we went to The Pit for lunch, where we met Dr. Mc. We talked about our research and findings over a plate of North Carolina BBQ. At the Pit, we sat outside so that Mr. Self’s dog could stay with us. After lunch, we walked back to HQ Raleigh and continued our research and work for Vector Textiles and Mr. Self.

Day 5: The Lab and Lyda

Mr. Self booked us a tour at 10 am today at the Vector Textiles lab at NC State University. He initially warned us about getting lost, but Will and I never expected to be driving down a dirt road lined with horses, cows, and goats. As we traveled closer to the lake near the back of the Veterinary Clinic at NC State, we realized that we were lost. Rather, the address that we typed in got confused since there were two roads with the same name. We frantically called another member of Team Mawan to send their current location, and soon we arrived at the one-story building that was the Vector Textiles lab. Mr. Self also brought his dog, Lyda, with him. She was very shy but sweet.

A very adamant entomologist, Grayson, was our tour guide. He showed us lots of scientific tools, such as the insanely cold freezers (-80 degrees C) to the huge centrifuge with a jet engine. After a rundown of the different rooms and labs, he took us to the mosquito room. There were shelves of thousands of mosquitos, a few hundred in each glass cube.

Grayson then proceeded to stick his hand a vat of mosquitos, which elicited perplexed responses from Team Mawan. He relieved some anxiety by explaining that it takes a couple of seconds for the mosquitos to actually draw blood, so he had to shake his forearm every couple of seconds.

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He then showed us the testing room, which contained a net, where they have subjects sleep under the net overnight and then tally up the number of bites they get.

since we are under NDA, we were not allowed to post any pictures of the net inside

Overall, today was a very fun experience, and Grayson educated us about insects and mosquitos. In order to create a product that does not allow the insects to resist treatment, one needs to understand and learn a considerable amount of information about the specific insect and its tendencies. After the tour, we went to lunch with Mr. Self and Dr. Mc, who came and visited us.

After a scrumptious meal, we headed back to HQ to polish our research, tired but ready for beginning the final presentation tomorrow!

Vector Textiles Day 4

Today was our second market research day in stores. We split into the same two groups as our second day at work. This time, Will and I got to travel to Cary for a jaunt into Bass Pro Shops. Here we were able to interview customers on what they would think about insect resistant clothing that was all organic, no chemicals involved. The most interesting person that we got to talk to and got information out of was actually one of the employees who was stocking the shelves. She said that she had a lot of personal experience with bug-related maladies as her mom had died from Lyme Disease and her daughter in law came close to death from a mosquito bite. Will and I found this to be very impactful and it gave us an idea of what the market could truly for this sort of product in the US and beyond.

Will King and I on our trip to Bass Pro Shops. One of the customers we surveyed was nice enough to get a picture of us with a taxidermy bear!

The fruit stock at HQ Raleigh had been replenished with a bundle of bananas and more apples and pears in the fruit jar!

Day 4: Customer Responses

Today we faced our fears of public speaking – rather, going up to random strangers and talking to them about bug resistant clothing. We split up into two teams again, one team tackling REI while the other traveled to Bass Pro Shops. Adam and I went to REI, the first few minutes spent sitting in the car and trying to summon the courage to walk into the store. After walking a lap around half the store, it was time. We walked in and made a beeline for the bug repellent spray and clothing. We talked to a sales associate, who was an avid outdoorsman and admitted to using Insect Shield, the monopoly of the chemically treated insect resistant clothing. Prior to departing from HQ, I made a customer response survey that we would fill out after talking to each customer in order to keep track of our data and make sure the graphs from the Google Forms was usable. Mr. Self requested that we ask the customer if they would pay more for an organic product, and the sales associate agreed that he would, no hesitation. It was a good start to the daunting task.

We spent some more time in the stores asking customers about bug resistant clothing, and we received an overwhelmingly positive response to the potential organic product. We headed back to HQ to reconvene and organize the graphs properly. We learned about one more chemical, picaridin, which was the better alternative to deet, a harmful chemical which damages most clothing. There was a sales associate in REI who thought that chemical-free bite resistant clothing wasn’t plausible, and was also worried about cost and effectiveness. Although we do not know the cost or effectiveness, the point of our market research was assuming that it worked just as well as the chemical alternative. That said, although the machine for making the weave is expensive, it does not undergo additional chemical treatment with permethrin, essentially making Vector Textiles cheaper. Tomorrow, we are visiting Vector Textiles labs and starting to put together our final presentation. I am looking forward to gathering all of our information and research into one coherent presentation for Mr. Self!

Day 4

Team Mawan began the day at HQ Raleigh with Mr. Self at the R!OT work space. We continued yesterday’s debrief and talked about what our plans were going forward. Today was another “off-site” day, where we conducted customer surveys at REI and Bass Pro Shop. We got to continue to delve into the depths of insect repellent chemical sprays and clothing. We split up into the same two groups as Tuesday to go to one of each of the two stores. At REI, Amy and I located a vast array of insect sprays and pesticides, but nowhere to be found was any non-chemical alternatives. We had conversations with employees, customers, and associates about what they preferred and what they were looking for in a bug repellent product.

As we continued our day, we continued to do market research and analyze much of the data gained from our surveys. We have data from both in-person and virtual surveys. We are able to put that data in cleanly represented charts for Mr. Self to see and for our other final presentations to Vector Textiles and to CA.

Vector Textiles Day 3

Unfortunately, most of what we worked on today for Vector Textiles was under NDA so I cannot say much about my actual work. However, our work environment changed as another company had in our normal workspace. This led to us getting moved into a small conference room. All we had was a small table and a whiteboard to work today so we all had to cram onto the table. Today did come with some extra perks though, there was free food at lunch and we were able to get some snacks for the conference room as long as we cleaned up afterwards. At the end of the day, we had another meeting with our mentor, Mr. Self, and debriefed with him today. We talked about the things under NDA and more of the market research that we completed yesterday. One more exciting thing that occurred today was that a trip was set up to the textile engineering labs at NC State for Monday. As something that I am interested in studying, I cannot wait to see the labs and talk to the professors.

Us at the start of the day when we were relegated to the small conference room, still high in spirits though.