How We Explained our Engineering Expertise to 'Engineering Explained'

There’s no denying it – the design of car interiors is changing. There’s less analog and more digital. We’re seeing fewer buttons and more screens that are larger and have more touch capability. And, nearly universally, there’s more glass.

Over the summer we challenged Jason Fenske from the YouTube channel "Engineering Explained to explore these trends and learn more about the surprising glass technology that supports them. Our mission with Jason was simple: let our clever scientists and engineers teach him about the clever glass science and engineering we produce to support today and tomorrow’s auto interior displays. And let's roll this into something that we will call "A Glass of Its Own."

What was simple to envision was no easy feat to execute. My team had to map out his visit to our more than 2-million-square-foot research facility, which is honestly a haven for people like Jason who are engineers, scientists, or possess curious minds and are looking to solve tough technology problems. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, excited and, yes, lost in a place like this.

But with all the planning, production, and post-production behind us, I talked to my marketing team and gathered the top three things that helped us explain our complicated glass engineering to Engineering Explained.

Let’s start with #3: WORK WITH A PRO

Jason is a professional storyteller with an engineer’s inquisitive nature. He knows the ins and outs of car engineering and doesn’t hesitate to ask questions to help clarify a technology or concept. You wouldn’t think this was his first adventure with auto glass, or glass in general – he came to Corning, he explored our tech, he drove some cars around, he asked questions, he absorbed complicated technical jargon and he produced a wonderful explanatory piece about our technology.

#2: SHOW YOUR MOST CAPTIVATING PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES

Jason toured through our facility to see our auto interior glass product from start to finish – from red-hot molten glass poured out of a crucible to the final piece deployed in today’s cars. He got to bend our glass, test the durability of our material, and learn about the incredibly complex optical physics calculations that go into our advanced surface treatments.

Finally, we get to #1, which is most important: RELY ON YOUR TEAM

An innovation story is only as compelling as the people who tell it. Luckily, we have some of the world’s brightest minds in glass engineering, reliability, and optical physics right here in Corning, New York.

Kim Smith and her expert team* shared the story of Corning? ColdForm? Technology, our patented and proprietary process that makes bending glass a simpler process for our innovation partners.

*Thanks to the many from this team who supported Jason’s visit: Gaurav Dave, Nathan Craige, Chris Timmons, Jen Rice, and Jeff Benjamin?

Khaled Layouni, Ray Gibson, and Ward Knickerbocker hosted Jason in our reliability studio for headform impact testing. They put AutoGrade? Corning Gorilla Glass to the test, and even let Jason push the button to initiate our impact machine, which is something they’ve never even allowed me to do.

Jim West and team members Jim Lamacchia and Maricela Moore toured Jason through Corning’s glass optics expertise. With cover glass, there are complicated optical treatment calculations that determine how display information is seen by you, the end user. In automotive applications, where displays now show critical driving information, readability is especially crucial, no matter how much or where ambient light is shining into the car. Ironically, if Jim and his team do their job well, you shouldn’t even notice their work. It may sound like a thankless job, but Jim’s enthusiasm for his work is insatiable, and this part of our tour seemed to pique Jason’s interest the most.

We certainly packed a lot into Jason’s tour of our corporate RD&E center this past summer, and it was a pleasure to meet him and watch my team shine with their preparation. If you haven’t seen his video yet, I encourage you to check it out: How The Glass Inside Your Car is Engineered – Not So Simple!