Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

For some reason, I find the intricate multi layer packaging and how it all neatly fits together like Lego, highly satisfying.

Is there a job for designing packaging specifically for munitions? If so, I'm wondering how does the job description look like.

View on HN

There is definitely such a job. In the mid-90s between university semesters I did temporary work in SW London. One company I worked at for a few weeks was called Adpax - they specialised in making packaging, particularly for munitions. I just had to put washers in small plastic bags, or detonators into boxes. In the larger building next door I saw them making enormous boxes to fit all kinds of stuff - including what looked like missile parts. I did a brief stint in that building, can't quite remember what exactly I did except wear a mask and wield a glue gun. Felt quite heady at the end of the shifts.

This is the only trace I can find online of them: https://web.archive.org/web/20041127024643/www.adpax.co.uk/m... (the domain still serves a homepage, but the site has fallen into severe disrepair)

I did a load of work in small companies in and around London as a way of funding travel after finishing school. I was blown away by the number of jobs the arms industry provides. My favourite one was making model aircraft, sometimes at 1:1 scale.

RIT offers BS and MS in Packaging Science

https://www.rit.edu/study/packaging-science-bs

That link includes a list of job titles, if you google them you might be able to find since job postings.

I was too excited and posted the same thing after you. My nephew started the program this year and is liking it so far.

not sure if they have any courses specific to munitions, but RIT is one of the few schools that has a dedicated Packaging Science degree. My nephew started this year. He was turned onto it during a campus tour. He, and the rest of us, had never heard of such a degree before. I think a lot of other schools would have a class or two in an ME program.

https://www.rit.edu/study/packaging-science-bs

>Is there a job for designing packaging specifically for munitions? If so, I'm wondering how does the job description look like.

It's the same as designing packaging for anything else. They just want industry specific experience depending on the role. These companies are getting their entry level hires from the same pool of engineering grads everyone else is.

hehehe.. in the UK our local Council recyclers would refuse to take all that packaging away.

The main outer shell looks like it's recyclable plastic, but then inside that it (from 1:18 onwards) looks like heavy-duty Styrofoam / "Extruded polystyrene foam" which I know my local council won't take.

Styrofoam is terrible stuff - bulky but not heavy (it's 98% air), not recyclable, and fragile enough that it's almost guaranteed to break down into fragments and small beads which are light enough to be dispersed by a breeze. Microplastics to go.

It can be recycled… into Molotov cocktails!

In the UK, our local Council also frowns on that; and I do not think that Ukraine has a huge shortage of Styrofoam that we should send it over. I don't think anywhere is short of it. It's everywhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com