Gingerbread Houses Livestock Trailers Bottom Rolling Hangar Doors Toy Figurines
Gingerbread houses are a holiday tradition. It used to take a fair amount of time and baking expertise to make one. But today, there are kits and even pre-assembled gingerbread houses that make the process a breeze. There's something about this edible edifice that makes the holidays seem more special. With a kit, you can let the factory handle the tricky part and just have fun with the trimmings. To make a gingerbread house kit, the factory starts with baking soda. Then a worker adds a scoop of salt, measuring the ingredients by weight. He transfers the baking soda and salt to a mixer. He measures the spices-- cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. There's actually a lot more cinnamon than ginger in gingerbread. But the flavor of the ginger is more pronounced. He closes the mixer, and the system adds water, molasses, and sugar. At the top of the mixer, he tosses in a block of vegetable shortening. The mixer combines all the ingredients and blends in the flour. The result is a putty-like dough. A spiraling machine helps move the dough onto a conveyor. A roller flattens the chunks so they won't fall off during the steep climb. The conveyor delivers the chunks of dough to a machine called a sheeter. It gets this name because it rolls the pieces into a seemingly endless sheet. A large cookie cutter comes down. It punches out the various shapes needed to form the gingerbread house. The cookie cutouts land on moving rubber-coated wires. Separators between the wires trim the excess gingerbread dough, which is captured and mixed into the next batch. Then the cookies transfer to a mesh conveyor, which takes them up to a baking sheet belt. The cookies travel slowly through a long convection oven that's heated to just over 160 degrees. Here's an inside look. At any time, there are parts for 150 gingerbread kits in this oven. The baked gingerbread exits the oven and transfers to a spiral conveyor. After a 30-minute ride, the dough is cool and firm. Workers stack the pieces for one gingerbread house onto a piece of cardboard. They're ready to be packaged with the rest of the kit. Factory workers assemble the houses for certain retailers. They glue the gingerbread structure together with royal icing made of confectioner's sugar and egg whites. It dries fast, giving this gingerbread house instant structural integrity. For the customer, all that's left is the decorating. Elsewhere in the factory, they make the icing for the kits. Plastic packaging moves toward hot jaws that seal the bottom. Then a robot grabs a package and opens the top. A fill nozzle pumps icing into it. Another robot applies an applicator tip and heat-seals the plastic around it. The tubes of sugary icing fall on to a conveyor. A worker places them in a box for transfer to the kit-assembly station. These gingerbread houses are ready for retail. Decorated with icing and candy, they look good enough to eat. Livestock should be transported in a vehicle that keeps them comfortable and protects them from injury and stress. The best way to haul cattle and horses humanely is in a livestock trailer. They're designed to be easy to load, unload, and clean out. A proper livestock trailer keeps its passengers as comfortable as possible. It's built to reduce rattling and other stress-inducing noises. It lets in natural light, which has a calming effect, and it has openings along the sides to circulate air. A designer builds a 3-d model on a computer then breaks it down into units for assembly. The factory orders long pieces of extruded aluminum designed for the trailer model then cuts them to specific lengths. To construct the floor, workers slide planks into end rails. They pull the planks tightly together using ratchet straps then weld them to the rails. They weld two flat aluminum bars across the planks as floor supports. The floor is upside down during this part of the assembly. Once they flip it over, these supporters will be under the floor planks. Next, they install the axles, two or three depending on the size and style of the trailer. These steel axles are mounted to a steel frame that provides structural support for the trailer. To attach the frame, they drill holes for lock bolts and lock collars. They use a special tool to squeeze the collar down into the bolt. This ensures the bolt won't loosen with vibration. Now they flip the floor over. They weld the reverse side of the rails to the floor planks using a track welder. To construct the trailer walls, they weld together horizontal slants, uprights, and a top rail. They connect the wall to the floor then weld it in place. This trailer is designed for a warm climate, so the side walls have openings at the top to improve air flow. Several parts of the trailer are cut from sheets of textured aluminum called tread plate. After welding on a large piece of tread plate for the trailer's front wall, they attach the gooseneck nose. This nose connects the trailer to the back of a pickup truck. It can also transport tools, feed, and baby animals. Trailers that don't have a gooseneck are called bumper hitches. They connect to the back of a tow vehicle. Workers attach the gooseneck using welds and lock bolts. They build the trailer's access gates the same way as the walls-- cutting aluminum extrusions to specific lengths, assembling them, then welding the parts together. They mount the gates by welding the hinge plates to the wall structure. The roof can either be a sheet of aluminum or a sheet of translucent woven glass fiber. They pull the sheet taut then rivet it to the top rail of the walls. They add an aluminum strip to secure the roof in high winds. Workers install reflective tape and l.e.d. lights where transport regulations require them. A rubber grommet around each light reduces vibration and prevents water infiltration. Workers complete the assembly by mounting the wheels and tires onto the axles. They add a spare tire under the gooseneck and a vinyl graphic decal on the side wall. After a thorough inspection, they give the trailer a mild acid wash to remove any grease and handprints. The factory can customize any trailer design. This includes higher windows for horses or installing troughs so the driver can give the animals food and water. Every trailer is designed for easy cleaning, which includes unloading the livestock, removing the bedding material and manure, as well as pressure-washing the floor. A hangar is a closed building structure designed for storing aircraft or spacecraft. They provide protection from direct sun exposure and bad weather. As aircrafts grew bigger, so did their hangars. Many hangars today use giant bottom-rolling doors. The bottom-rolling hangar door moves along rails embedded in the floor and top guide beams built into the ceiling. They use several smaller panels to construct the 184-foot-wide hangar door. An oxy fuel cutter carves door parts out of a carbon-steel plate. The torches heat up the metal, then blast it with oxygen. This creates iron oxide, which melts and flows out of the cut. The operator uses an iron rod to lift the machined parts off of the burn table. He cleans up the edges with an electric grinder and removes any iron oxide left over from the cutting process. The machined parts go to a cnc mill, which turns each round blank into a wheel. A carbide insert carves the rail's tread profile into the steel. The machine sprays coolant to prevent overheating, which would warp the finished wheel. Next, a machinist uses a smaller blank to make an upper-guide roller. The mill runs at a speed of approximately 200 rotations per minute. It quickly turns the round blank into a finished roller ready for assembly. A worker starts fitting rollers inside the upper guide head. He inserts them into machined holes in the steel housing and tack-welds them in place. He positions the larger rollers outside the upper guide head housing. These rollers will bear the load of the door. Using a metal sheet as a gauge, he sets the clearance between the roller and the housing then welds the parts together. A cnc drilling machine prepares to make the outside frame of the door panels. A pressure sensor on the drill moves its carbide insert back automatically as soon as it pierces the surface. Meanwhile, two welders assemble the bottom door truck on a welding jig. They weld a spacer to the main beam using an electric mig welder. They tack-weld the tube in place then bring in the side channel of the door truck assembly. They clamp the side channel tightly against the spacer tube. Then weld the spacers to the beam, making a clean, continuous weld. A worker sand-blasts the door truck assembly. He blows compressed air and sand to prepare the metal surface for painting. Using a spray gun, a worker applies corrosion-resistant metal primer on the door truck and leaves it to dry. Workers assemble the panels before the door leaves the shop. They use high-strength structural bolts to assemble the parts. Workers install the unitized operator assembly. It contains the engine powering the bottom roller wheels. A worker bolts the electrical control panel to the operator assembly frame. He puts the cabinet door in place and secures the hinge. Tightened brace cables keep the door square and prevent racking. They mount the upper guide on a telescoping assembly. They add the door's corrugated exterior panels, and it's ready to ship. At the push of a button, the assembled door slowly opens. Each panel rolls on the bottom rail and hangs from the top guide rail. The door opens wide enough to let the aircraft through. Playing make-believe is a common pastime for children. Research shows that playing with dolls and toy figurines can improve a child's creativity, communication, and social skills. This includes problem solving and empathizing. Whether it's an animal, person, or fictional creature, a toy figurine can be a passport to a fantasy world where imagination rules and the story plays out in the child's hands. The toy company designers study photographs or drawings of the creature they plan to create. Then they prepare a sketch of the figurine showing the physical characteristics, such as size, colors, and textures. Once the sketch is finalized, they use specialized software to transform it into a 3-dimensional model. Then a 3-d printer creates a plastic model. The company also employs traditional wax modelers. It may look like a slow process, but an experienced wax modeler can often sculpt a model faster than a computer. The company's engineers determine whether the toy should be produced in one piece or multiple parts. Then the modeler makes a wax or plastic model accordingly. This particular dino is divided into four parts-- head, body, jaw, and tongue. For each part, workers create a silicone mold, which will be used to make several copies in hard plastic. Workers place the model of the dino's head in a box then fill the box with silicone. It takes about 12 hours for the silicone to cure. Then they cut it open and extract the model. They use the vacated cavity to cast several hard-plastic copies of the part. The art department uses most of them to sample paint colors. One copy, however, goes to the company's tool makers, who use it to make the production mold. They bury the copy in putty up to the midpoint. They leave the top half of the copy exposed. Next, they set the half-buried copy in a metal form and fill it with plaster. Once the plaster hardens, they cure it in an oven for about an hour then they extract the copy. What's left in the plaster is a cavity in the shape of half the dinosaur. They fill the cavity with molten zinc, alloyed with copper, aluminum, and magnesium. Once the metal cools and solidifies, they break the plaster, revealing one half of the two-part metal production mold. They repeat the entire process to make the other half. Workers mount the two-part dino mold in an injection molding machine. The machine shoots hot, molten plastic into the metal mold cavity. The machine immediately cools the plastic then releases the figurine. The plastic is solid but still soft, so they dip it in cold water. This hardens it further. Next, artists hand-paint the figurines using both traditional and airbrushes. The paint is nontoxic and very durable. It's designed to flex with the plastic to prevent cracking. It also withstands abrasion because children often drag these toys along the ground. Once the paint dries, they assemble the toy. A worker glues the dino's tongue into the hinged jaw, snaps the jaw into the head, then glues the head to the body. The company performs safety testing on every new figurine designed. This tensile test makes sure a child can't pull or bite off a piece of the toy. Chemical analysis confirmed both the plastic and the paint are completely nontoxic. So this dino may look dangerous, but in reality, he's perfectly harmless. This ferocious beast is ready to hit the playground.