Pamela Kan, President
Photo: Melsha Nicole Photography
Full disclosure,
math is not my best subject, in fact it ruined my chances at becoming a
pharmacist, but when 3.14.15 comes around only once in a century, we need to
celebrate! While I may not be stellar at
math I love STEM and making sure our kids are getting a great STEM based
experience in school. So we combined two of our favorite subjects – math and
food – and built the first ever Bishop-Wisecarver Pie Making Machine in honor
of Pi Day 2015. You won’t find it added
to our sales catalog just yet, but you can check out what products we used to
build it in a list I’ve included below.
Who says
manufacturing, math and technology can’t be fun? We made pies, had a pie eating contest and
then threw, smashed and “gently placed” pies in the faces of our colleagues. No matter what method was used, the pie made
its mark. You can’t fake this kind of fun and you can check out the results in
this short video.
We had fun with this
historic event and made a big deal of this at our California headquarters – specially
designed bright blue Pi shirts worn by all, towels filled with whip cream from
wiping faces and lots of laugher echoing on the plant floor. I think I had red
icing in my eyebrows for a day! Sounds like a kindergarten class, but that’s
what I love about our company – we know how to work hard and play hard together.
Our Pi Day 2015
event highlights two of the many reasons I love leading the Bishop-Wisecarver
team. First, we enjoy what we do and the people we get to work with on a daily
basis. We spend a lot of hours, days,
months and years with some colleagues and these relationships help us get better
personally and professionally, as individuals and as a company. When I look at our silly video, I see the
smiling faces, but I also see the “stories” of each of the people represented.
I know when they started working at Bishop-Wisecarver, the projects they’ve
helped make successful and the extra hours they’ve put in to helping a customer
realize success. We don’t think it’s
old-fashioned to say we are like a family here – that connection makes a
positive difference in everything we do.
And, it’s why we can smear a pie in someone’s face and then go enjoy a
beer or a round of golf together.
The Bishop-Wisecarver Family Photo: Melsha Nicole Photography
Brian Burke, Product Manager Photo: Melsha Nicole Photography
Secondly, this event
is just one of the many ways we try to show students that subjects like math
and science, and industries like manufacturing, don’t equate to a boring career. Learning how to build a pie making machine
wasn’t part of my high school curriculum, but when I tell students about our
machine, or they see the video, it will open up possibilities and ideas they
hadn’t considered. Helping students understand
the opportunities in our manufacturing world is one of our top priorities at
Bishop-Wisecarver. We talk in classrooms, welcome tours of students, mentor in
a variety of programs and sponsor local science and engineering events as well
as several FIRST Robotics teams locally. We are very proud to also sponsor
FIRST robotics at the national level. We
do all of this as a way of serving and educating the students of today who will
be the employees and inventors of tomorrow. And tomorrow is coming faster and
faster all the time! So we made pies,
made a mess and celebrated our love of food and math. Pi Day 2015 was truly a celebration for the
century!
Pamela Kan, President
Scott McClintock, VP of Marketing & Technology Photo: Melsha Nicole Photography
The automated pie making machine is based upon a LoPro® Linear
Actuator. The primary linear axis is a lead-screw driven LoPro
with a rotary axis made of HEPCO
Motion PRT2 360-degree ring. Both axes are driven by servo motors via
LabVIEW development software. The machine also has independent mechanisms for
applying whip cream and frosting.
