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To achieve this, paper is accumulated between two sets of rollers which swing together like a giant pair of scissors. When the new roll has been spliced successfully, the scissors swing open again to buffer paper for the next change. As I photographed the winding equipment I remembered that I had my elderly Nikon film camera, loaded with Ektar with me, and I got it out to take a couple of snaps.
It was the first time I had used the camera in about 15 years. After each click of the shutter I found myself glancing down at the back of the camera, looking for a screen to check how the picture had turned out!
Here is one of them. I have to admit that I much prefer the digital images! As the paper approaches the coating station, it runs through a corona discharge unit which bombards the paper surface with streams of electrons. These cause breaks in the polymer chains that make up the polythene coating and provide a much better surface for the emulsion to adhere to.
When Track 5 was built in the s, the emulsion was applied to the paper using a technology known as bead coating. The emulsion layer when dry is only about 6 microns thick one twentieth of the diameter of a human hair so you can imagine how thin the individual layers need to be. They are designed with viscosities that prevent them mixing. All of this needs to happen in the absence of air bubbles, impurities, or anything that would jeopardize the homogeneity of the emulsion.
It is difficult to imagine that the process actually works — but it does. I have heard that the cost of a hopper is something close to a million dollars. During my tour I did not get a good picture of the hopper so I am grateful to Robert Gunsing for letting me use a picture he took during a visit on the same day. Close to the coating station at the south end of Track 5 are the large emulsion manufacturing areas. This is where the light sensitive emulsions and the liquid dispersions are manufactured according to proprietary recipes that Kodak has developed and refined over the decades.
I will not pretend to understand what I was looking at but vastly oversimplifying the process works something like this: Four kg batches of gelatin based, light sensitive emulsion are prepared every hour period. This material is allowed to solidify and is stored until it is needed. At which time it is melted and mixed with a whole variety of secret sauce dispersions — including the dye forming components and interlayers. These coatings are piped to the hopper for immediate use. After the emulsion is coated onto the paper, the next vitally important step is to ensure that it stays there.
Remember that the paper is moving at about 5 meters per second through the track with seven or eight layers of warm liquid wobbling about on its surface.
This web runs straight from the coater into a chiller room which takes the temperature right down to almost zero degrees Celsius. The paper runs horizontally over a series of ribbed rollers until the emulsion has solidified sufficiently. Until this happens, needless to say, nothing can touch the emulsion side of the paper otherwise it would leave an impression. After the chiller rooms, the paper passes underneath a series of pipes which blow air over the surface of the emulsion to start the drying process unfortunately I did not get a good photo of this stage.
By now the emulsion has solidified enough to be able to be routed concertina fashion through the dryer. Actually the drying equipment seemed to account for a big part of the meter long coating track. Not long before the end of the track, the paper passes through a laser scanner which examines the surface of the paper for physical defects such as scratches or bubbles. Any defects are logged so that affected portions of the parent roll can be discarded at the finishing stage.
One of the many interesting things that I learned during the tour is that the rollers that guide the paper through the coating track, have varying circumferences. This is a massive help in finding the source of cyclical defects because once you have measured the distance between the marks, you can easily work out which roller is the culprit!
Think of this as the unwinder in reverse. Here the finished sensitized material is wound back onto a core before being wrapped in lightproof black plastic and taken out through the trucking tunnel to the finished goods store in building W From here, the rolls are sent out to three continents for finishing into the smaller rolls that can be loaded into minilabs and photographic printers in colour laboratories.
I have mentioned a couple of times that the coating track we toured was Track 5. Much of the track has been dismantled but some portions still remain. Dick had a set of keys and was kind enough to take us inside. When George Eastman chose Harrow to build his first factory outside the USA, he was looking for a site with excellent road and rail access, plenty of room for expansion and an abundant supply of good quality water.
There are five wells on the site and Kodak has licenses to withdraw water for use in the manufacturing process. This is one of the five wells — now sealed.
We rounded off our tour of the factory with a visit to the power station and to the engineering workshops where many of the moveable items were labelled with lot numbers for forthcoming auctions. We could have spent days wandering around with our cameras and still not have covered everything. In some ways I wish I had had the presence of mind to start this project 15 years ago. There certainly would have been a lot more to photograph. Back outside again, this is the view from the roof of Track 5, looking eastwards.
Looking in the opposite direction. Across the road Harrow View , houses are being built on the site of the old Kodak Recreation Grounds. Although I have never been permanently based at the Harrow site, I have spent quite a lot of time there during various stages of my employment with Kodak.
I used to be a regular visitor to the Color Photo Technology building when I worked as a product specialist on high speed printers. The area where these buildings used to stand is now scrubby grassland because it is cheaper to knock buildings down than to pay rates when they are standing empty.
I will not have another occasion to visit the factory before it is decommissioned. If I find myself close to Harrow in years to come, I will probably be unable to avoid the temptation to drive past and see what has happened to the place. It will look very different when the factory buildings are replaced by houses, schools and shops.
I never had the full tour, the only place I saw was the finishing section which you said has now been outsourced to other Continents. When they had the finishing section I was surprised that even in not sure of the year exactly that each roll that was cut was bagged manually by a person!
Great article James think you started about the same time as I started in service. She is a distinguished lecturer for the society and has given talks on signal processing, multisensor data fusion, and neural systems.
Kramer serves as an IEEE commissioner within ABET , the global accrediting organization for academic programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. She has contributed to several advances for graduate programs, cybersecurity, mechatronics, and robotics. Kazuhiro Kozuge Majesty Professional Photo. He has been conducting robotics research for more than 35 years, has published more than technical papers, and has been granted more than 70 patents.
He began his engineering career as a research staff member in the production engineering department of Japanese automotive manufacturer Denso. In and , he was a visiting research scientist at MIT. After he returned to Japan, he began his academic career at Nagoya University as an associate professor.
In Kosuge left Nagoya and joined Tohoku University , in Sendai, Japan, as a faculty member in the machine intelligence and system engineering department. He was a senior program officer of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science from to Among his honors and awards are the purple-ribbon Medal of Honor in from the emperor of Japan. She is co-owner of Carbovate Development , in Sarnia, Ont.
She also is an adjunct research professor at Western University in London, also in Ontario. In she joined the National Capital Institute of Telecommunications in Ottawa as vice president of research alliances.
There she was responsible for a wide area test network and its upgrades. While at the company, she founded two research alliance networks that spanned across industry, business, government, and academia in the areas of wireless and photonics.
She joined Lambton College , in Sarnia, in and served as dean of its technology school as well as of applied research and innovation. She led the expansion of applied research conducted at the school and helped Lambton become one of the top three research colleges in Canada. It provides applied research services to industry while offering students and faculty opportunities to develop solutions for industry problems. Unitree Robotics , well known for providing affordable legged robots along with questionable Star Wars—themed promotional videos, has announced a brand-new, custom-made, 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm intended to be mounted on the back of its larger quadrupeds.
Also, it will save humanity from Sith from Mars, or something. This, we should point out, is not the first time Unitree has used the Force in a promotional video, although its first attempt was very Dark Side and the second attempt seemed to be mostly an apology for the first. I guess Unitree will have to release more products so that we can learn how this story ends.
Anyway, about the arm: There are two versions, the Z1 Air and the Z1 Pro, built with custom motors using harmonic reducers for low backlash and torque control. They are almost exactly the same, except that the Pro weighs 4. Max reach is 0. A strong, lightweight, and well-integrated arm certainly makes that job easier, but it remains to be seen what will be involved in getting the arm to do useful stuff. This broad initiative is expected to continue the growth of McMaster as a leading destination for innovative teaching and research.
To support this growth and further develop McMaster Engineering's longstanding strengths in research, innovation and graduate training, the positions being offered will include two Tier II Canada Research Chair CRC and tenure-track positions, with specialization in the fields of micro-nano technology, smart systems, and bio-innovation.
Puri, McMaster's dean of engineering. In addition to successful applicants teaching both undergraduate and graduate level courses, they will also be expected to establish a strong externally-funded research program, supervise graduate students and foster existing or new collaborations with other departments and faculties.
We welcome experts from around the world to be part of this next generation of growth and innovation in the Faculty of Engineering," adds John Preston, McMaster Engineering's associate dean, research and external relations. The strength of McMaster Engineering has been its strong focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and an emphasis on research with impact.
Earlier this year, McMaster ranked 17 th in the world in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings and number one in Canada for good health and well-being and decent work and economic growth.
The rankings recognize the important contributions universities make to their communities, countries and on an international scale. In a combination of both its commitment to impactful research and collaboration, McMaster Engineering has also aimed at providing a supportive and inclusive environment that celebrates big ideas and commercialization while working with industry partners around the world to solve the world's most pressing challenges.
The Faculty's mission to push the boundaries of discovery and innovation plays a significant role in helping McMaster University earn its reputation as one of Canada's most innovative universities. As Canada's most research-intensive university, McMaster's commitment to research continues to be reflected in its rankings. Most recently McMaster was named one of the world's top 70 universities in the Times Higher Education rankings.
Innovation extends to McMaster Engineering's approach to education. This year, as part of The Pivot initiative, more than 1, first-year engineering students are experiencing the school's new interactive course called I ntegrated Cornerstone Design Projects in Engineering. This novel course integrates concepts previously taught in four different courses into a single, seamless, project-based learning experience, allowing students to work in teams, design prototypes and solve real-world problems.
By transforming the engineering curriculum, reimagining the learning environment and amplifying experiential learning, The Pivot takes a project-based and experiential learning approach to developing future-ready graduates with design-thinking and entrepreneurial mindsets.
For more information on current opportunities within the Faculty of Engineering, view the postings here. The Lowballing of Kodak's Patent Portfolio. Explore by topic. Our articles, podcasts, and infographics inform our readers about developments in technology, engineering, and science. Join IEEE. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
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