I had a chance to talk to a group of young people this week regarding technology.  Preparing for the presentation was difficult at best; it’s easy talking to a group of adults, trying to get through to a bunch of eight year olds proved very difficult.  When I scheduled the event I thought “how hard can this be, I have two kids and love that age group?”

Truth be told I didn’t come up with the idea until I pulled into the parking lot. I gave the kids a few minutes to think of items they use every day that are manmade and have no moving parts.  After a few minutes of talking, hands waved in the air and I received better ideas than I did using a similar approach with adults.  To my dismay I pulled it off.

Toothpick, dice, paper, and balloon were some of the items they came up with.  There were tons of excellent ideas, but I chose to use only four to keep their interest.  Rather than get into technical details I opted to simplify the theme of how technology is used to make even simple items.

Their first example of a toothpick was really clever.  I visited a popsicle stick manufacturer years ago and guessed the process was similar.  First, a computerized lathe-press trims a thin veneer of wood from a log.  During the next process the sheets of wood are trimmed to the proper size on a press.  the final process for the manufacturing of the pick is to polish it round and form the pointed tips at each end.

Making dice, on the other hand, is quite a bit different.  Most modern dice are molded and I’ve had plenty of opportunities to visit dice plants in both Leominster and Pittsfield.  The most common method is to inject molten plastic into a die.  After a robot removes the die from the injection molding machine, they’re conveyed to a polishing machine which removes the sharp edges leaving them easy to roll.

Surprisingly enough the manufacture of paper is very labor-intensive.  Due to its nature there’s a lot of manual handling:  from the pulping process to the conversion process.  Pulping uses large machines to break a tree into fibers which are then rolled thin.  During the conversion process the paper is coated and cut by machines for its intended purpose.  Final handling and inspection is usually done by people due to paper’s fragile nature.

I’ve never been to a rubber balloon factory but took a guess based on my knowledge of how a similar product is made.  Much of the process involves a giant automated machine transferring balloon molds from tanks of release agent, to latex dips, to finally removing and testing the balloon with a stream of air from the bottom.  I took a guess at one of the kid’s questions about the little lip at the bottom of the balloon.  Similar processes use a set of spinning brushes to roll the end while the latex is hot.

Even though something seems basic and pretty non-technical, the process of making it uses technology.  Computers are used all the time to reduce labor costs, increase production, and maintain consistency.  Someone came up with the idea of six sided dice and someone else came up with a way of making them economically.  I left the kids with the most important notion:  even though technology is used to make things, without people technology won’t work.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner.  You can text him directly at (978) 413-2840 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)