Vacuum Forming

Vacuum forming is a process by which mold a hot sheet of thermoplastic around an object and pull the air out from between them.

We decided to choose this manufacturing method for the frog head in the 2020 season for a few reasons. There was almost 20lb of foam on the robot in 2019, the vacuum-formed heads weighed less than a pound. Switching brought the cost of the heads from $100s to <$30. The cycle time per head was more than a day, the vacuum former brought that down to half an hour.

The vacuum former is made of wood, pegboard, a shop vac, and 3 deconstructed space heaters. The frog head buck was routed from MDF. The plastic sheeting we used was 1/16” HIPS.