Recently a lady called Chicago Metal Rolled Products and asked if Bender worked here.
Here is a sketch of Bender creating a complex bend which includes (starting at the bottom of the beam and moving up) a compound bend which blends into a helical bend which blends into an easy way bend at the top with a straight tangent.
A bit of background on Bender compliments of Wikipedia.
Bender Bending Rodriguez (or just Bender) is a robot from the television series Futurama (created by Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons). His best and only friend is the main character, a human named Fry from our time who gets accidentally cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the future.
Bender is essentially an anti-hero. He cheats and steals, is very selfish and amoral, yet in general is liked by the other characters and is probably the most popular character on the show from a fan’s perspective. He’s even made an appearance or two on The Simpsons. He constantly drinks, but this is due to the fact that alcohol is his power source. When he doesn’t drink alcohol, he is shown to behave similarly to an intoxicated person. Occasionally he does show a caring side to suggest he isn’t completely bad.
Designated Bending Unit 22, Bender was originally built by Mom’s Friendly Robot Company to bend girders for suicide booths (pretty much what it sounds like – a booth where people go to commit suicide). He got depressed from this and left his job. He now works with Fry for a freight delivery company called Planet Express.
He attended Bending State University where he majored in Bending and also had a minor in Robo-American studies. While he was originally designed for a specific bending job on girders, he is shown throughout the show bending any number of objects, including a brick wall and enormous steel girders marked “UN-BENDABLE”.
He has many other features and functions that are in addition to his original bending duties that you would imagine a futuristic robot would have. For example, Bender has inconsistently claimed that his metallurgical composition is some combination of 30% iron, 40% titanium, 40% lead, 40% zinc, 40% dolomite, 20% or 40% chromium, 40-50% osmium, 0.04% nickel, 60% storage space and 40% lucky.
Often when I try to explain to friends what the company I work for does, if they aren’t quite getting it, I will ask if they have seen Futurama. If they have, I tell them we essentially do what Bender was designed for, i.e. bend structural steel. This usually gives them a much better visual of what we do.
If you happen to run into Bender, please let him know that we are hiring.
