Between the Olympics and the Super Bowl, plastics will be used in some high-profile, high-performance sporting events. But the most impressive thing I've seen going into Super Bowl weekend is definitely the guy surfing on a Pella Corp. fiberglass window.
The guy is professional surfer Jamie O'Brien, who's known for pushing boundaries. Whether this stunt was dreamed up by O'Brien or Pella, I'm not sure, but the window maker and the surfer teamed up to determine if Pella's windows could stand up to the surf in Hawaii — and if O'Brien could actually stand on the window in the surf.
The window Pella made for him did have some alterations. "After all, we were trying to test Pella's fiberglass material, not Jamie," the company noted.
Those changes included swapping out the glass for polycarbonate, creating a smooth bottom surface and adding foam in the frame so it would float better. But that was about it.
"The window actually surfed pretty good," O'Brien says in a video on the project, adding it was the most difficult object he's ever surfed on. "A little scary for sure."
Meanwhile, at the Super Bowl, thermoformer and injection molder MacNeil Automotive Products Ltd. has unveiled the ad that will promote its WeatherTech line of products.
This is the ninth year for a WeatherTech ad for the Super Bowl. This one has more of a focus on its aftermarket auto products rather than on the people in production, which was the theme of past years. Titled Special Ops: Fit Crew, the ad shows a group of WeatherTech workers swooping in to place a range of products in a customer's SUV.
You can see the ad now on YouTube or wait for it to appear in the first half of the game.
The Bolingbrook, Ill.-based molder had to pay an estimated $6.5 million for the half-minute ad in the NBC broadcast. Last year, CBS charged $5.5 million.
But perhaps basketball is more your style. If you're a college hoops fan, you may be able to get your hands on the red chair that Indiana University Coach Bobby Knight infamously threw onto the court during a tantrum at a 1985 game. Or at least one of the chairs that may be that chair.
No one is quite certain if one of the chairs being sold in a virtual garage sale is actually the one that was tossed. As The Herald-Times reports, 100 identical red plastic chairs were purchased to serve as benches for the basketball team in 1971. One of those, with "Assembly Hall" stamped on the bottom, was hurled by Knight.
Other sellers have tried to claim they were selling the one specific chair in the past, but even university officials couldn't say exactly which one it is. But the chairs have become so iconic, replica versions are hung as an art display at The Graduate hotel in Bloomington, Ind.
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