NovationSi and RDAbbott spark student interest in rubber and polymers industry with hands-on experience
Garden Grove, CA – NovationSi and RDAbbott recently introduced 21 middle school students to the rubber and polymers industry. The seventh graders from Roberts Middle School in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, toured RDAbbott’s Barberton Service Center, a materials science and distribution hub that’s also NovationSi’s headquarters. The Wednesday, February 19, field trip included a hands-on experiment.
The event began with an introduction by Steve Hersey, NovationSi’s Plant Manager, and Brian Swanton, NovationSi’s Director of Process Engineering. Hersey and Swanton explained their roles, described opportunities for career growth, and provided an overview of the companies’ history, expertise, and collaboration.
As the students learned, RDAbbott is a materials science, engineering, and distribution company that’s been serving the rubber industry since 1948. The students also discovered how NovationSi, an innovative provider of custom silicone solutions, specializes in creating custom compounds and dispersions for liquid silicone rubber (LSR) and high consistency rubber (HCR) materials.
The students were then split into three separate groups led by Hersey, Swanton, and Neil Lanterman, NovationSi’s Quality Coordinator. Each group toured the laboratories, mixing rooms, and warehouse at the Barberton Service Center, a 127,126 sq. ft. facility that opened in October 2021.
In the laboratories, students were introduced to the testing equipment elastomer technicians use and observed some of the tasks the technicians regularly perform. The students observed formulation development, color matching, physical properties testing, and LSR process engineering in action. The students also learned about the various mixing machines on the production floor used for custom dispersions and compounding.
After the tours were complete, Swanton and Ariana Marich, RDAbbott’s Commercial Events Planner, led the students in a hands-on experiment where students created an oven-cured custom silicone molds using pigments and RTV (room temperature vulcanizing) materials.
The middle-schoolers were accompanied by their math teacher, Sarah Flohr, the 7th grade intervention specialist, Catherine Young, and by Dr. Missi Zender-Sakach of the Summit Educational Service Center (SESC), which helps school districts in Northeast Ohio to improve their STEM curriculum and instruction. Flohr was introduced to RDAbbott and NovationSi last summer, when the Summit County STEAM Leadership Cadre toured the Barberton Service Center.
The July 8th visit prompted Flohr to ask if she could bring her seventh-grade Math Academy students to see the facility.
With their shared passion for educating people of all ages about the rubber and polymers industry and its many career opportunities, RDAbbott and NovationSi extended an invitation. The February 19th visit was such a success that Flohr hopes it will become an annual event for her Math Academy students.