The use of plastics for mass production traces its roots to the 1860s and John Wesley Hyatt, a printer from Albany, New York. Hyatt was responding to the offer of a $10,000 reward to anyone who could come up with an alternative way of making billiard balls—which were, in those days, carved out of ivory, a commodity becoming in short supply. His solution was to form them by pumping a molten synthetic plastic called celluloid into a mould.
Although Hyatt appears never to have received the prize, the process he invented, injection moulding, became the way in which most plastic items are made. At least they were until the emergence in the early 1980s of additive manufacturing, popularly known as 3d printing. Machines that can print things in plastic have become ever more capable, turning out objects ranging from toys to medical implants, and components for cars, drones and aircraft.
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Ted Rozier is the Director of Engineering for Festo Didactic Solution Center North America, with headquarters in Mason, Ohio. Rozier has 20 years of experience in automation engineering and the design and development of robotics and machine tool turnkey systems for the automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical industries. He has managed the development of several user-friendly automation control turnkey systems on a global scale. As Director of Engineering of Festo Didactic, Rozier is passionately looking to advance Festo Didactic as a global leader in designing and implementing Industry 4.0 learning factories and demystifying I4.0 career pathways with the view to systematically prepare individuals to excel working in dynamic and complex industrial automation environments.
