The goal of this video is to get young students (elementary level) excited about engineering and manufacturing by showing them that machines can be used to transform a "useless" piece of plastic into four very different objects. The video will highlight how engineering allows us to transform materials into useful products. This point will be highlighted by showing the students the transformation of the plastic into different products.

The video will begin by showing 4 pieces of plastic stock and asking "what can engineers make out of these?". We will then take the first piece of plastic to a thermoform machine and deform it to produce the body of a toy car. The video will show how the engineer uses the thermoform machine to transform the piece of plastic. Then we will use the bamboo tablets to explain in broad terms (no equations or technical details) how the thermoform machine works (plastic is heated up, it becomes deformable, and then the mold is used to create the part).

The other three pieces of plastic will be transformed with different machines. The video of the machine being used will be accompanied by a quick elementary-school level explanation of the machine. The plastic will be transformed using a mill into a marble game, an injection molding machine into a yo-yo, and a box using a waterjet.

In the end we plan to highlight how an engineer can make a lot of cool things using their knowledge and machines! Our team is a group of graduate students who work in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity. We are all very interested in manufacturing because we love to make things. We think that showing students how engineering allows you to design and make cool things will spark their interest just like it did ours!