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In the laboratory for Survey of Physical Chemistry, students proceeded through a five-week project in which they measured protein-protein binding. This project engaged the students in learning physical chemistry and laboratory teachniques as they took ownership of a particular, novel protein-protein interaction. First students purified new proteins by size-exclusion chromatography and learned about separation and diffusion. Then students measured the binding strength of new protein-protein combinations using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) as they learned about SPR physics, experimental design, equilibrium binding, and data fitting using integrated rate laws. The web-based platform GENI provided protocols to the students and collected data, organizing projects spanning multiple classes. In the space of an academic year, students asked a question, then found the answer in the lab. Together, by expressing new proteins and measuring binding thermodynamics and kinetics, we found that the NKG2D immunoreceptor and its MIC ligand proteins show remarkable cross-reactivity among human, rabbit, and gorilla orthologs.