Winning student receives engineer-for-a-day experience at Minnesota Rubber & Plastics’ new Innovation Center and $2,500 in STEM supplies for their school
MINNEAPOLIS – March 2, 2022 – Quadion LLC, d.b.a. Minnesota Rubber & Plastics (MRP), a leading provider of highly engineered elastomer and thermoplastic solutions, today announced the winner of its Young Innovators contest. Eighth grade student Megan C. from St. Patrick’s School in Hudson, Wisc. was selected as the winner of the contest, earning her entire 12-person class an engineer-for-a-day experience at MRP’s state-of-the-art Innovation Center in Plymouth, Minn. and $2,500 in STEM supplies for her school.
Megan’s entry, “Solar Power Solution to Make Contaminated Water Drinkable,” outlined a solution for securing clean drinking water using solar power and hydrophobic filters.
“Our committee of judges was extremely impressed with the thoughtful, detailed and creative entries we received for the Young Innovators contest,” said Karthik Viswanathan, Vice President, Product Development at MRP. “Choosing a winning entry was extremely difficult, but we ultimately chose Megan’s entry for its thorough research, innovation, practicality and the creative way she came up with a solution to a major problem facing millions of people across the world. It also specifically addresses environmental sustainability and water quality which are two issues of importance for MRP.”
“The entire faculty and I are extremely proud of Megan for this accomplishment,” said Julie Mattimiro, Megan’s 8th grade Earth Sciences teacher. “I presented the contest to my students as an extra credit assignment. Megan took the challenge and came up with an idea, researched the topic of water contamination and created a plan for using solar power to generate clean drinking water for the one in three people across the globe that do not have access to it.”
Construction for MRP’s $7 million Innovation Center is scheduled to be completed in May. Upon completion, Megan and her class will travel to Plymouth to be engineers-for-a- day with some of the industry’s top materials scientists and engineers. Megan and Mattimiro will work together to determine how to spend the $2,500 in STEM supplies based on the needs of St. Patrick’s, which has approximately 200 students in pre-K through 8th grade..
About Minnesota Rubber & Plastics
Minnesota Rubber & Plastics (MRP) is a leader in material compound development and the manufacturing of custom elastomeric and thermoplastic components. For 76 years, the company has built a reputation for consultative design services and successful production of “the tough parts.” With facilities across North America, Europe, and Asia, MRP collaborates with customers to solve difficult sealing and component challenges across multiple markets. Capabilities include materials science and formulation, new product prototyping, operational excellence and supply chain consolidation. The company’s new Innovation Center provides its customers with direct access to materials science expertise and a fully integrated design-build-prototype-test process that enhances innovation and greatly accelerates product development. The company places emphasis on research and development and empowers its technicians to design, formulate, develop, and test a wide range of highly engineered materials and parts. For more information, please visit www.mnrubber.com. meet the next-generation needs of our customers’ product.
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Minnesota Rubber and Plastics
Karl Spilseth
Global Marketing
(952) 927-2161
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