Los Cabos Drumsticks: Video Press Release- Spider (July 27, 2012)
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Canada's Los Cabos Drumsticks has expanded its manufacturing capabilities with the recent addition of a custom built, high performance, computer sorting system. Designed and built by engineers from the University of New Brunswick's Mechanical Engineering Department, the prototype machine nicknamed "The Spider" can sort high volumes of drumsticks according to their individual weight and pitch. It is the first of its kind built for use by a Canadian drumstick manufacturer.
The design and production of this unique machine was spearheaded by UNB's Jason Elliot and supervised by Dr. Juan Carretero, director of the school's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory.
This new machine will help increase the quality of the company's popular line of drumsticks by offering a greater degree of weight-accuracy for paired sticks while also introducing the company's first pitch pairing system.
"Pitch pairing is something we've wanted to do for a few years now," said Matt Carter, director of marketing and artist relations. "According to our customers, we're producing some of the highest quality, longest-lasting drumsticks on the market. Now we can take our overall quality one step further."
"Since we first started turning sticks, our sorting and printing was done completely by hand," said Carter. "As our manufacturing began to increase, so did our need to improve the post-production side of things."
Company president Larry Guay worked closely with the university engineers to ensure the design and operation of the project would meet the needs of his growing company.
"I think it was a great project for both the University of New Brunswick and Los Cabos Drumsticks," said Guay. "We gave a young engineer the opportunity to design and build a rather complicated machine. He gained real-world design and work experience in his field and we got a great machine."
The Spider takes each finished drumstick through four stages of the post-production process. First, a stick is weighed by a computer scale which then registers the unique pitch of each stick. Sticks are then printed by a pad-printing machine before being picked up by a robot arm that sorts each individual stick based on its weight & pitch properties. Sticks are then colour-matched and sleeved by hand, an important process that allows for one final inspection before shipping.
"Since The Spider was introduced to our operation, I've been wondering how we managed to get by without it for so long," said Guay. "This machine is amazing. It has definitely helped our company grow to another level."