What you’ll learn on this episode of Machinery Minutes:
- Meet Geoff Foster of injection molding company Core Technology, whose non-profit provides free STEM camps for middle schoolers.
- Additive manufacturing technology maker Stratasys has acquired “a collection of assets” from Nexa3D, which shut down in December.
- Shini USA introduced three new film pelletizers designed for precise cutting and uniform pellet size.
Transcript
Hello, welcome to PMM Insight, a Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing podcast. I am your host, Ron Shinn, editor of PMM.
This is an episode of Machinery Minutes, where at the beginning of each week I share with you three things you need to know in about three minutes. You can read the complete stories on plasticsmachinerymanufacturing.com.
Let’s get started.
Story Number 1: You cannot help but feel good about our first story today.
Geoff Foster, who operates the injection molding company Core Technology in Greensboro, North Carolina, along with his wife, Tonya, has a non-profit that provides STEM camps for middle schoolers.
The camp program is free. It includes meals, lodging for those who live too far away to go home at night, and use of individual laptops. Campers get exposure to injection molding, robotics, 3D printing, clean-room molding and advanced manufacturing at Core Technology.
Foster said, “They love gaming. We let them [get] hands-on with the Wittmann robots, Yushin robots, and we let them program a robot. I can tell the light kind of kicks in, that programming this robot [is] similar to gaming. They see the correlation. They’re like, “Whoa.” Most of them are really smart kids.”
Each one-week camp session has about 15 campers. There are eight sessions this summer, which is the third year of operation for the camp.
Foster said, “We’re starting to get a little traction. We’re getting people from Detroit, Los Angeles, Colorado who are contacting us. We’re really trying to figure out how we can scale this bigger.”
Headline is “Geoff Foster is paying it forward.”
Story number 2: Additive-manufacturing technology maker Stratasys has acquired “a collection of assets” from Nexa3D, according to announcements on both companies’ LinkedIn pages and on Nexa3D’s website.
Nexa3D customers and partners can now get support from iSquared AG, a wholly owned Stratasys subsidiary, for their machines, parts and materials.
Nexa3D, which made 3D printing technologies used in prototyping and other applications, announced in December that it was shutting down. It had a portfolio of over 300 patents.
Headline is “Stratasys acquires Nexa3D assets”
Story Number 3: In new product news, Shini USA introduced three new pelletizers designed for precise cutting and uniform pellet size. One model, the SFP-45, is air cooled; the SFP-60 and SFP-70 models come in air-cooled and water-cooled versions.
Depending on the material being pelletized, throughputs range from 44 pounds per hour to 88 pounds per hour for the SFP-45 and up to 265 pounds per hour to 330 pounds per hour for the SFP-70 water-cooled pelletizer.
Headline is “Shini debuts 3 film pelletizers.”
Those are my Top 3 items for this week. We have a new list every Monday.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Machinery Minutes. You can always find our podcasts and the latest information about the worldwide plastics industry on our website, www.plasticsmachinerymanufacturing.com and on social media.
Remember to subscribe to the PMM Insight podcast on your favorite podcast app and tell a friend or colleague if you think they would enjoy the show. This podcast was produced by Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, an Endeavor Business Media brand.
Ron Shinn | Editor
Editor Ron Shinn is a co-founder of Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing and has been covering the plastics industry for more than 35 years. He leads the editorial team, directs coverage and sets the editorial calendar. He also writes features, including the Talking Points column and On the Factory Floor, and covers recycling and sustainability for PMM and Plastics Recycling.
