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1960's Toy Using Raychem Shape Memory Polymer Technology [video]
- raattgift 3y agoThe wikipedia article on shape memory polymers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape-memory_polymer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape-memory_polymer seems pretty decent. A highlight: "Recently, a new manufacturing process, mnemosynation, was developed at Georgia Tech to enable mass production of crosslinked SMP devices, which would otherwise be cost-prohibitive using traditional thermoset polymerization techniques.[40] Mnemosynation was named for the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, and is the controlled imparting of memory on an amorphous thermoplastic materials utilizing radiation-induced covalent crosslinking, much like vulcanization imparts recoverable elastomeric behavior on rubbers using sulfur crosslinks. Mnemosynation combines advances in ionizing radiation and tuning the mechanical properties of SMPs to enable traditional plastics processing"
- bediger4000 3y agoA friend of mine had one of these. They didn't work well. The first time you warmed up a squashed thing it unfurled pretty well, but they never quite squished back into a square. After the 4th or 5th unfurling, the creatures developed hard spots, and you basically couldn't squash them again. Also, terrible as toys. All you could do is unfurl and squash. Not much fun to someone old enough to do the heating and squashing dafely.