If you were a kid in the Midwest and ever visited a zoo or museum, you probably ran into one of these machines. They were — and still are — pure magic. Even if you didn’t recall the name Mold-A-Rama, you might remember the smell and feel of warm, air-molded polyethylene in your hands.
For those who’ve never seen one of these machines in-person, they basically work like this: You insert money (today it’s $2.00) and hear the machine spring to life with a loud hum. Hydraulic arms come together in the middle behind the transparent bubble, where plastic enters the chamber as forced air pushes it into the existing mold. Roughly 45 seconds later, the mold halves pull apart, and another arm pushes the newly-molded piece off the chamber surface and into the opening compartment, where you can retrieve your still-warm plastic toy. See it in action here.
