Molding (process)

Molding is like playing with Play-Doh! Imagine you have a big squishy ball of Play-Doh and you want to make it into a car. You would start by pushing and shaping the Play-Doh with your hands until it looked like a car.

Molding in the manufacturing world is similar in that you start with a big blob of material, but instead of Play-Doh, the material is usually something like plastic or metal. You put this material into a special machine that heats it up and melts it down into a liquid.

Once it is a liquid, the machine puts it into a special mold that has the shape of whatever you want to make, like a car or a toy. Just like you shape the Play-Doh with your hands, the liquid material fills up the mold and takes on its shape.

The mold and the liquid material are left to cool and harden, just like Play-Doh dries out and hardens over time. Then you can take the hardened material out of the mold and you have your finished product!

Molding is used to make all kinds of things, from toys to parts for machines, and it's a really cool way to turn a big blob of material into something specific and useful.