Polymers Center Podcast

Transcript

Matthew: Hello everybody, and welcome to Surviving the Pride. I am your host, Tim.



Jourdyn: And I'm Jordan, and you might be.

Matthew: Asking, what is Surviving the Pride? Well Jordan, I would tell you Surviving the Pride is all about marketing. Explaining all aspects of marketing to help a business grow, importance of having a website, SEO, social media, and we're also going to be talking about starting a business as well.

Jourdyn: Yeah, so in addition to that, we're also going to give you guys some helpful hints, tips, and tricks about current and upcoming trends within whatever industry our guest business is from and give you guys a bit of general information in regards to that. I'm here with the Polymer Center, here to just talk with these lovely people about their roles, some industry realities, and their senior design projects. So if you guys could just introduce yourselves

Veronica: My name is Veronica and I am the accountant and I also do the ISO, internal audits and some marketing for the Polymer Center.

Matthew: My name is Matthew. My title is project engineer, but I would say mostly I work with the extrusion and compounding lab at the Polymer Center.

Andrew: And my name is Andrew, and I am the injection molding and a lab technician here at the Polymer Center.

Jourdyn: Right, now that we know who everybody is, let's discuss how your roles contribute to the overall mission of the Polymer Center. Anybody want to start?

Matthew: I would say when a customer has an initial idea and they're coming to us as far as testing their product or whatever it is, I would say my job is kind of to start. So a lot of times people come to us and they'll have an idea about something like a project or a certain type of plastic that they want to test and they'll bring it to me. And I'll either do like a compounding trial with them where I'm mixing together several different types of plastic, or I'll do some sort of like sheet or blown film or kind of whatever the scenario is. And then from there, I either send it to injection molding, which is Andrew, or I'll send it to the lab, just mora.

Andrew: And when he sends that down to me, I will make whatever parts they would like to have made in order for testing or just for visual preference and either send it back to them or send it over to the lab to test for mechanical properties.

Jourdyn: Okay, let's talk about some projects you guys are working on. I remember that the last group that we had was touching on some of their projects, but I know you guys can't get too far into details because of NDAs and everything, but what are some initiatives that you're working on or some things you're excited to start talking about?

Andrew: One of the things I've been working a lot with lately is a biopolymer that doesn't actually have any plastic in it. So I guess it wouldn't really be considered a polymer, but they're making food utensils such as forks, spoons and knives that would dissolve in water over time and create less pollution in the ocean, like there is now with standard plastic. They're trying to eliminate that type of.

Jourdyn: Waste, which is cool, honestly. I do remember the last group touched on what is the thing I was talking about this robotic dog. I don't know if you guys can touch on that at all. I won't ask you to, but I saw a video about this robotic dog that they kind of like made. I don't know if we could talk about it. I don't know if we can't talk about it, but I thought that was cool as well.

Matthew: It sounds awesome.

Andrew: It does sound awesome.

Jourdyn: I looked at the video and I literally sat there, and I was a big Jimmy Neutron fan in my way. Little kid age. I know young now, but we'll take it back way further. And I was obsessed with Goddard. So, like, seeing the little robot dog, I lost my mind. I had a full blown, like, nerd moment. It was so cool.

Matthew: Yeah, it sounds really cool. I just don't know what project that.

Andrew: There was one that they did that with up. I think it was Boston.

Matthew: Right? Oh, really?

Andrew: Electronics or whatever.

Matthew: I can't oh, yeah. Yeah, because they came out with that. It was like the robot dog and it's like an open source software and all that. So you can program it to do whatever you want to do.

Jourdyn: I don't know.

Matthew: I saw a video exactly.

Jourdyn: It was but it was the fullest thing I ever saw in my entire life in my Mindway.

Matthew: Right.

Jourdyn: So you guys are making cool stuff. Makes me want to be a scientist, even though I don't like science. Makes me want to do that. Okay, let's get into segment two, which is your industry realities in the plastics industry. So I know that there is a statistic that if plastic energy consumption only makes up 3% of the world's energy consumption compared to that 60% that comes from fossil fuels. If you guys want to touch on.

Veronica: That stat a little bit.

Matthew: Absolutely. Yeah. So one of the things that I was researching kind of ahead of this, actually, was it was something that was kind of interesting to me was, I didn't realize this, but there's a lot of plastics that are made. Solely out of fossil fuels, basically as far as energy consumption from plastics and creating turning it into what we see today, as far as water bottles or technology, whatever it is. First step is extracting the raw materials, pulling it out of the Earth so that's going to consume energy. And then the actual production catalyzing, like the pressurized, heating, whatever it is you're doing that's going to consume energy. The manufacturing process, like transportation, that's going to consume energy. A lot of people, I think, kind of skip that phase or they don't really even think about it. But yeah, I mean, transportation is fuel and getting things from A to B, the use phase and then end of life management as far as burning it, whether you're recycling it, whether you're how that kind of comes about. But I would say as far as the polymer center is concerned, we come into place once the plastic has after the plastic production phase, basically, right? So we take the plastic and then, for instance, like, I do compounding refinement, whether they want to add like a color in or whether they want to add like an impact modifier, that sort of thing. I would say that's kind of where the polymer center comes into play. Kind of after all that, after everything.

Jourdyn: So you're like the grand finale, right? Kind of grand finale. That actually leads me to ask this another question, which is, I know that plastics aren't really a big recyclable tool. Does the polymer center tend to reuse any polymers that haven't been? I don't know how that process works. So forgive me if I'm not verbalizing it correctly, but do you guys get the chance of reusing any unused polymers into newer projects, if that makes sense?

Matthew: As far as, like, recycled polymers?

Jourdyn: Yes.

Matthew: So I would say yes. I personally have done quite a few trials that deal with purely recycled material. And depending on the polymer, you'll have different properties. So, for instance, I think PT tends to keep its properties pretty decently. So there's a really big push to for recycled PT and kind of how that comes into play.

Jourdyn: Right.

Matthew: A lot of times I feel like when people are trying to reuse materials, oftentimes it won't be like 100% recycled. And instead what happens is you'll see a certain percentage. And it was funny, I think I saw like a water bottle or something like that and it said up to zero, 1% recycled up to so it was like a very small percentage. Yeah, it's a very small right. So it was a very small percentage. But yeah, I mean, as far as like, clothing and that sort of thing, it could say like it's being made out of recycled material. But the question is what percent of recycling?

Jourdyn: Right. And what percentage would be, I guess, considered marketable, at least for clothing? Because that actually leads into my next question, which is some examples of plastic in our daily lives. And you touched on clothing, but that makes me wonder for brands that are taking a more not holistic I can't think of the word I'm trying to use.

Andrew: Just recycle.

Jourdyn: Yeah, resourceful. Thank you.

Veronica: That helped a lot.

Jourdyn: Resourceful take on clothing industry. Because I know during COVID that was like one of the bigger things that they kind of touched upon. What makes that marketable, like, in the plastics industry? If you guys know, if you don't, that's okay. That's something we can touch on another episode.

Andrew: Well, one thing I would say with that is I have a hat at home that if you look at the tag, it says it's made of recycled plastic. It doesn't tell you how much it's in the material, but it's one of those things like, you just look at it and, oh, that's cool. This is actually somewhat, I guess I wouldn't say necessarily that hat line is going to save the planet, but it's like, oh, I kind of feel like I'm doing a part of something.

Jourdyn: Right.

Andrew: And I think that's where it's very marketable. It makes people feel like they're taking an initiative in order to be in a better space with the green space we're trying to go towards now.

Matthew: And I think with marketing, too, it's one thing to market something as a product, but then also it's like if your product doesn't have the end material properties, it's like, would a consumer actually buy it? Right. So it's like if, for instance, you're trying to sell people, I have a water bottle here, so I'm just going to keep using the water bottle example. But if you're trying to sell somebody X number of water bottles and you're saying that, oh, yeah, it's like recycled and all of this, but then it doesn't hold any water, what's the use? Right, yeah. So I think it all comes down to material properties and then how they actually line up with if you were to not use any recycled material. Right. So if you didn't use any recycled material and something that lasts like five to ten years, and then you use recycled material and only lasts three years, would the consumer still buy it if they knew that it was only going to last less two to seven less years?

Jourdyn: Right. The lifespan. What's? That a good point.

Andrew: With the water bottles as well. I've actually done for a company, a regrind study on Pet, which it was just a visual study. And you make so many parts, and you grind the so called pure parts down, and then once you grind down the pure parts, you shoot them back through again. Shoot so many of those parts, keep so many, and then grind them down again, and then shoot them through again in the injection molding process. And the whole study is that that company makes bottles and they want to see how many times they'd be able to reuse the bottles and it would still look clear like this.

Jourdyn: Okay. Taking recycling to a whole new level.

Andrew: Yeah, trying to whole new level.

Jourdyn: Okay. Well, that's still cool. How many times can you reuse a water bottle to make a water bottle? Water bottle?

Andrew: Make it look or make it look something like this stuff turns yellow whenever it is degraded.

Jourdyn: Things I Learned from Polymers, part eight.

Matthew: So yeah, also with the colorants, but then also especially with, like, compounding. I've run certain trials where we'll take the same material and run it through the extruder three or four times. And basically the test is how does the material properties change every single pass through the extruder? And with every pass, generally what you see is you'll have degraded properties, obviously depending on the material. But then they're trying to measure the extent of that pass, right?

Andrew: Trying to see if they still match the spec of the original or at least they're within allowable range of failure.

Matthew: Right within your tolerance. Yes.

Jourdyn: Wow. Okay. Forgive me, I'm speechless. It's really cool to just see how you guys deal with an interactor, just personally, not just as a job, but just even to see the application of your work in real time. It's really cool. Okay, let's get to segment three, which is interacting with customers. So can anyone kind of explain the process for setting up trials with Matt's Line and then how customers proceed step by step with how that works?

Matthew: So I think initially what happens is customer will come up with some sort of idea, something that they want to create, something that they want to test, and they'll go, they'll talk to Tom about it. And with Tom, they normally set up a trial plan. And my machine, or like my lab, is generally rented out day by day. So whether it's a one day trial or like a multiple day trial, he'll kind of set up and go through exactly what he wants to see happen kind of through the trial. And then from there, he'll come to me and tell me exactly what needs to be set up, exactly what needs to happen, because it will change every single trial depending on exactly what the customer wants. So there's a lot of communication that needs to happen going in between each trial. As far as my line is concerned, I would say just about every day we have a new customer coming in. Want to try something completely different. Yesterday we had a trial, today we have a trial, and we're going to be booked out trials for the rest of the week too. So one of the interesting things, just as an example, is like, for the compounding line, there's two screws because it's a twin screw extruder. And the interesting thing with screws is with the twin screw, it's like stackable. So when I took a class, they pretty much said that there was like an infinite number of possible screw designs that you can use for the twin screw.

Jourdyn: Okay?

Matthew: And with any given product, from what I was told, there's probably 18 possible screw designs that will work optimally with that product. So one of the things that we try to do is work with the customer and try to figure out what screw design will actually work for their product or with their compounding.

Jourdyn: So I guess you would say that'd be like a challenge. One of the challenges you might have to face with the trial runs exactly.

Matthew: Is trying to come up with a certain screw. And we have to look at exactly what they're trying to do. If they're trying to side feed the material, if they're trying to do like a liquid injection, if they're trying to run powders through there, how is that going to change the screw design and how do we need adjust to actually optimally run their products?

Jourdyn: I did not know that there was that many different screw designs that could.

Matthew: I think that's more of like a statistic. I would say there's infinite number. But the reality is there's a certain science that goes behind a screw design, right? So basically what will happen is you catch on to patterns so it doesn't make it impossible to come up with a screw design. So you kind of approach it as what exactly are we doing? What have we done in the past that's worked?

Jourdyn: Trial and error?

Matthew: Kind of, to some extent, yes. That's cool though. And then after everything comes through my department and I do all the compounding, that's when I send it over to Andrew in injection molding.

Andrew: And pretty much from there, I will take the compound that he made and I will injection mold it to pretty much whatever the customer needs. Most of the time it's test bars, but I've also done things for visual representation with like plaques or discs or anything like that. But when it comes to the test bars, I'll make however many test bars of however many samples he sent down. And I will take that over to the lab and we'll test it for mechanical properties because most of the stuff we're dealing with are brand new compounds that that engineer wanted to just test and see if they would work. So you're testing them to see if they're within the range, to be within the range of failure to match whatever the standard is for what they're looking for.

Jourdyn: Right.

Andrew: And that could be anything from tensor flex or impact testing. There's a wide range of other tests you could do to test those bars as well. But at that point in time, I pass it on to the lab and once the bars are done and over there and tested, we send the results to the customer. And that's pretty much when Euro would come in and he was here last time and discuss the results with the customer if needed, or they can interpret them however they fit.

Jourdyn: That was actually leads it to my next question of like, has there been any rewarding interactions that you've had with any customers or how has the customer feedback played a role in the product development? Since. I know you have to go through so many test runs with certain products.

Andrew: There's been plenty of things we made that didn't work, but there's also been a ton of things that we've made that they got the exact results they were looking for. But most of the stuff when we're doing this, it's a trial starting from the ground up. So it's all about improvement. So say they make this first batch of samples and they don't see any of the results they want, but the company still thinks it's worth time to invest in that. They'll come back to Matt most of the time. They'll do another round of samples and hope for improvement. If they get improvement and get closer to what they want, they'll just keep going.

Jourdyn: Right.

Andrew: And eventually if they get to the standard that they're trying to reach or within the allowable tolerance of whatever they're looking for, you've pretty much set them up. We had a customer we've been working with not too long ago actually send me samples from their first compounding trial on a big machine rather than just our lab line. And we're going to test those whenever I make the parts and see if they match up with the results they were getting before because they got the results that they wanted.

Jourdyn: So there's a lot of interconnectedness with each of the departments, whether it's from getting customer feedback from injection molding or from the lab or from extrusions and all that. Different things like that. So obviously it plays a really big part. Make sure that you guys are all communicating with each other for the success of the center.

Andrew: We spend a lot of time interacting with our customers, I would say.

Matthew: Yeah, communication is big, but then also good note taking. And that's right thing too because especially when I'm trying to send things down to injection molding sending him good notes of temperatures or torque and that sort of thing that I'm seeing, like when I'm making the initial product and then sending it to him, then he can also take that and use that to his advantage.

Andrew: Then injection wall, that's one thing that's good about having the compounds made here. I actually know what's in it because sometimes I'll be sent things from outside that I have no actual idea what's actually in it. I'm just trying to figure it out and make sure I don't mess anything up. But he always sends me down exactly what's in it and I can make sure we're within an allowable temperature tolerance for whatever's in there. That we're not going to burn anything off and ruin anything that they work for.

Jourdyn: Right. So is there more dependency between both of your departments? As far as a chain of I won't say chain of command, but, like, a flow of how products are made.

Andrew: For me and him, we work together a lot, just for the not actually in the same room or anything, but he'll make something, bring it down to me and give me whatever I need to be successful. It all pretty much starts with him at that point.

Matthew: Yeah, we have a system of how we operate and make sure that I'm communicating with him and we're talking back and forth about trials and what dates, when things need to happen and what we should expect and see. So I would say, yeah, just trial operation is mostly what I'm concerned with.

Jourdyn: Well, nonetheless, you can obviously see just based off how you guys kind of bounce back and forth off of each other, like, obviously a team collaboration with all of this. I do want to touch on schooling versus your real life careers. So basically, how are the things that you've learned? I don't know if you guys have done any in house training with the Polymer Center, but how have the things that you've learned in school different from your actual careers in the Polymer Center? And I know we haven't really had chance to talk to Miss Veronica that much, so I want to get her on this question.

Veronica: Yeah, absolutely. One thing when I was in school that they touched on a lot throughout our accounting classes is like, inventory and how to account for it. And coming in here, it was such a change because we technically don't have any inventory. And I think that shocks a lot of people because they assume, like, oh, you make something, so you have to have inventory. But we have our customers send in the raw material, so it's technically not ours, it's theirs. They own it all. And then throughout the inventory process usually have work in progress and then finished goods. But we're kind of that middle person because we kind of make the pellets or the molds and stuff like that. But we don't create a finished product. We're not going to be making a water bottle. We'll create the plastic to go somewhere that will then make the water bottle.

Jourdyn: The middleman, basically yeah, in the production process. Well, what about you guys? How is school different from what you're actually doing now? I don't know. I haven't met any kids that go, yeah, I want to be a scientist that works on plastic.

Matthew: Well, actually, it was kind of funny because I would say my degree is in mechanical engineering and a lot of people that I see in plastic industry came from more of like a chemistry background or like a material science background. So I would say my schooling, as far as what I actually learned, was I learned a little bit about plastics in a couple of different classes, but it wasn't plastic focused, if that makes sense.

Jourdyn: That makes sense.

Matthew: But as far as I feel like all of the concepts that I learned in school transfers over into plastics. So as like an example, as far as real life versus theoretical, anything that you can sit there and calculate in a theoretical sense is always simplified or you have to simplify it because there's no way of calculating in certain factors. You can sit there and work with safety factors or tolerances and that sort of thing and just try to assume certain things, but in order, that's kind of where I would say the polymer center comes in is people want to see that actual test result. They can sit there and calculate the theoretical all day long, but if they actually want to come in, make something, and then test the actual result, where are the actual numbers that we're seeing? What sort of tolerances are we seeing on our parts? What is the actual product going to be like?

Jourdyn: Right?

Matthew: So I would say that's kind of more or less where the polymer center comes in and what people enjoy seeing is the actual result versus more the theoretical, right?

Jourdyn: Not the what if, but more of like, oh wow, this is what it is physically. Okay.

Matthew: And also it's like, how accurate is their theoretical approach, right? Because they can say like, oh yeah, we think it's going to be this, but then they can go and test and say, okay, that's what it actually was. Or if it was off, it's like, okay, why was it off?

Jourdyn: Right? Your hypothesis. I said hypothesis. That was way off. Oh my God, your hypothesis, your actual experiment. And then you, wow, science. Science is so great, guys, I'm learning so many things.

Matthew: This is actually like I feel like.

Andrew: School gives you a good foundation too. Like he was saying, you can always fall back on some of the things that you learned in school because the whole process of going through college is essentially to learn how to do problem solving. You learn about the career you think that you want and they give you the bare minimum basics for what you'll need to get there. But with our industry, I always felt like you never really learn anything with it until everything's going wrong.

Jourdyn: That leads me into asking about if you guys had did any additional training at the center for anything that you hadn't really encountered prior to working that position.

Andrew: We got the training from the people that were there before us, but a lot of my training came from outside resources. Just as far as injection molding goes because I'm the only injection molding person there, I have plenty of resources from the people that had the jobs prior to me. I can reach out to them and talk to them anytime I want. Hero is also a great resource, but just where I started, an extrusion, I'm now an injection molding. And working in the lab, I just kind of got to learn everything from the people there and just learn on the machine as I went is pretty much where I came from in that aspect.

Matthew: And as far as me coming in, I worked like extrusion and compounding. And one of the things that the polymer center actually holds every couple of months is just like an extrusion and compounding class. Just like a basic one on one of like, this is what you're going to be doing. This is kind of the science and theory behind it. And I was probably working at the Polymer Center for, I don't know, like a month or two. So I got a good kind of background on how to actually run like a combating machine. But it was also really nice to be able to see kind of the theory behind how the machine works, why certain things operate the way they do. Because I'll say with the machine itself, sometimes not everything is cut and dry of like it kind of operates in a way that is different from how you would naturally perceive things.

Andrew: We do have a bunch of companies that come in as well and do training at the Polymer Center for things like injection, molding, extrusion, pretty much anything that you can think of. And I know in the future our plan is to get our molding training program back up and going. We just, since COVID have not had the resources available to make that happen.

Jourdyn: That was actually something that the last group was touching on as well, how you guys were supposed to be in the process of expanding your training programs and how do you want to bring in some more people, which actually leads into my next segment. I love how everything's just flowing so nicely. So let's talk about your UNCC senior design project. So what exactly is it?

Matthew: So this is actually something that was kind of interesting to me. So I went to UNC Charlotte and I graduated 2021 with a degree in mechanical engineering. So my senior year comes around and everybody takes like end of a senior year design project or it's like kind of your big Capstone project, right? And for Charlotte students, that really cool project set up where you work with other people from different disciplines. So there's some colleges that you'll have a Capstone project with just mechanicals or just electricals. But within UNC Charlotte, they have like mechanicals, they have electricals, they'll add computer if you need like a computer science major, like your engineering major, or like mechanical, text, electrical, techs. So kind of like a wide variety of people. And basically what happens is a customer, whether it's not just the Palmer Center, but a lot of different companies will send projects that they want UNCC to work on.

Jourdyn: Right.

Matthew: And then kind of your team's project is to actually create something for that company. There's a lot of Capstone projects where you're not working outside with any companies, like outside the university. So your senior design project will actually be something for the university, if that makes sense.

Jourdyn: Yeah, that makes sense. I go to USC, currently online, so I'm master's student. So it's a whole different ballgame, but essentially the same exact thing where you kind of get an outside sourced or even sometimes an inside sourced company or like conglomerate of the university to work with on a project so that you can learn the skills that you. Need to learn. But I wonder what's the relevance with the senior design project to Polymer Center? Do you guys assist with assigning those projects, those groups? How does that work?

Matthew: Yeah, so the Polymer Center, every year we create a new project for the Senior Design teams at UNC Charlotte. So every year, we're kind of like the mentors, if that makes sense, of a Senior Design team, and they will have some sort of project that we want them to work on. And actually so my Senior Design project while I was going through school was to create a conveying system. So, for instance, if we're making, like, a biodegradable material that can't pass through water, so we can't use our typical water bath that we use for, I would say, 90, 95% of trials.

Jourdyn: Right.

Matthew: Then at that point, we set up a conveyor at the end of the extruder and then just run the plastic onto the conveyor so that it doesn't touch water. And then by the time it gets to the end of the conveyor, the idea was to have the plastic cooled to a certain temperature to where it could then be cut.

Jourdyn: Right.

Matthew: So that was kind of my team's project for Senior Design.

Jourdyn: So what would be some of the key findings? I don't know how wait, my first question. Let me ask this before I jump into this next question. My brain is jumping around. When did this program first start with polymers?

Matthew: As far as, like, when did we start working with UNC Charlotte?

Jourdyn: Yes. When did you guys start working with UNC Charlotte?

Matthew: I came in like I said, my project was about midway through, and I know that we've had at least, I think, three other projects with UNC Charlotte. So I'm going to assume probably like 2013, 2014 is when probably the first one was done maybe earlier.

Veronica: Yeah. I'm not sure when the Senior Design project started with us with the Polymer Center, but I know we've been partners with UNC Charlotte since basically the beginning because that's where we were located, our.

Jourdyn: Offices with your history, I remember. Yeah.

Veronica: I think that's touched on that last episode.

Jourdyn: Yeah. But the reason why I wanted to ask was, over the course of this whole entire program and working with these students, what are some of the findings that you guys are finding and some of the takeaways? I know every group is different, especially in college. You get the group of knuckleheads, and then you get the group of people that are, like, typing or on it. So what have been some trial and error things that you've seen that you've tweaked to the program or things that you've taken away from the program, if any at all?

Matthew: I think the biggest thing as far as working with the college students is just communicating exactly what you want and just being just having a standard of what you kind of expect from the students and within their projects. They have a lot of responsibilities because they have to be communicating with a professor. I've definitely seen that kind of from both sides, where I was both a student and as a mentor. So it's been kind of interesting going back and forth between the two and seeing exactly how one works and the other one operates.

Jourdyn: Right. I mean, that's good that you have both perspectives on it. And my next question based off of that would be how or have you hired any students from that program? I mean, obviously, you're a shiny example

Matthew: I think it's just me. I know we've had a lot of students that have come through, but I believe I'm the only one that has been hired from the university.

Andrew: You're the only one that I know of.

Jourdyn: Wow.

Matthew: Now, I will say, though, like I said, my degree was in mechanical engineering, so plastics was a little bit interesting. And I feel like a lot of the UNCC, like, senior design projects, a lot of them are like, mechanical or electrical, and a lot of times people are coming through those fields with expectations of where they want to be. So obviously, plastics is a little bit niche from those degrees.

Jourdyn: Right.

Matthew: So that also might play a little more into a factor than as far as people being hired.

Jourdyn: Okay, well, yeah, I feel like this kind of industry that's the word I want to use this industry is very like you said, it's very niche. So I kind of wonder if any UNC students are listening tap in, but if you've seen any students that have had peak interest in it at all. I know that, at least for me, my major is completely different to some science. But when I see certain industries or certain clients that I work with that are extremely interested in me, I'm the first person to reach out. So I don't know if you, Veronica, have even gotten any emails with any students asking any extra questions or if you even get in contact with some of these students or I don't know how that works.

Veronica: No, I don't really contact the students. But I feel like like Matt was saying, plastics and polymers is such a niche group. I feel like people, unless they really hear about it, they might not get their interest sparked.

Jourdyn: Right.

Veronica: I remember in high school, we actually had a professor from NC State come out and talk to us about polymers. And I'm in high school, so we definitely had they were like, what is he talking about?

Jourdyn: Right?

Veronica: But I was like, that's actually really interesting. And I knew I wanted to do something in science. Originally, I was going for pharmacy, so I was like, maybe I should look into polymers a little bit more. But if you never heard of it, I don't think you would ever kind of think about that.

Jourdyn: It's brought up well, that's the whole premise. Of this podcast, you get some people thinking about polymers and hopefully reaching out to some clients and even some students that will want to learn more about it. But is there any other future collaborations that you guys are going to have with UNCC that are coming up?

Matthew: So we just finished a collaboration with UNCC, and it was like a small scale crystallizer. So basically, you put Morpheus Pet into the crystallizer and it heats it up into the crystallized state. And then basically I feel like for future projects, I know we have a couple in the works of some ideas that we have.

Jourdyn: Right?

Matthew: But I don't think anything's set in stone at this point that's good to.

Jourdyn: Get the ball rolling.

Andrew: I do know the plan is to work with them more in the future, even with the molding side, because we had one of their professors come over and visit us and have a tour. And I spoke to one of his manufacturing classes and we talked to him about over the summer, he wants to come over and he wants to see the machines working and learn how to use the machines. And also was interested in bringing students by just so they could see the style of injection molding lab that we have, because our lab is so vastly different than any process or any production site you're going to see because we have three injection molding machines that are in a nice lab on carpet. It's a lot different than what you would see in the industry. And he would like to get students to see the facility, get them around the machines, get them working the machines.

Jourdyn: And more hands on activities.

Andrew: Just getting to see that, well, that's.

Jourdyn: Actually really cool because I know when I think of manufacturing facilities for plastic, I don't think of nice carpet floors. I think everybody has the little goggles on and they're like, all right, let's do this. Very sciency. But I want to thank you guys so much for just giving me some of your insights on your experiences at the Polymer Center. Guys, please stay tuned to listen to any future episodes that we have, and we will keep you guys updated on any upcoming events or initiatives that are happening at the Polymer Center. So thank you guys so, so much.

Matthew: Thank you.

Andrew: Thank you. Thanks.