With Pack Expo Las Vegas around the corner, we took a look at the state of the packaging industry today to see what you can expect at the show. The answer is more automation.

Here’s what we know about Tremont, Illinois: It’s a small village in Tazewell County, (population 2,400+), holds an annual summer turkey festival (quite popular) and the courthouse is a famous historic site where politician James Shields challenged an “up-and-coming” lawyer named Abraham Lincoln to a duel with cavalry broad swords (they showed up, but the duel never materialized). In 2016, you can add FIRST Robotics Competition World Champion to the village’s rather eccentric list of accomplishments.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge is creating first-response robots capable of going where the danger is.

Norkol Converting Corporation is one of the nation’s leading independently owned converters and distributors of commercial printing papers. The company has full production capabilities and state-of-the-art machinery for winding, trimming and sheeting. The company utilizes traditional slitter re-wind equipment that unwinds, slits and then re-winds paper to new dimensions. These conventional re-winders, while typically producing new widths of paper with clean cuts, work at an inefficient, slow pace.

Nowadays, you can find scientists and engineers creating micro-robotic creatures for a slew of fascinating research projects.

Manufacturing employees have always kept their eyes on the robotic systems that continue to pop up in assembly lines and industrial workspaces. These metallic, low-maintenance robotic employees don’t waste time with smoke breaks or catching up on episodes of Lost. They tend to stick to the task at hand with little argument or attitude, giving human counterparts a bad name when they gripe about factory temperatures or lack of a decent dental plan.

Before Mike Cicco was involved on the engineering side, he used to sell robotic systems to manufacturers. Most of his sales pitches were met with hesitation and skepticism as he tried to explain the “benefits” of replacing employees on the shop floor with an automated system.

While gear and bearing manufacturers engage in a wind energy arms race, the robotic automation industry has its sights set directly on the sun. Solar power—wind energy’s somewhat neglected step brother—has been gaining ground in alternative energy since 2001.

ABB Robotics gets free advertising via summer blockbuster.