A stencil is a thin sheet of metal or plastic out of which a design has been cut.

VOA: special.2009.09.02

These include the Excite Pure, Excite Pro and Excite Write, and while they share the same plastic design, 10-inch form factor, ports and Android 4.2 OS, they each offer something a little different on the inside.

ENGADGET

IBM's design involved feeding small plastic wafers into a heated pump that melted them and pushed the goo through an extruder.

FORBES: Almost Out of the Woods

Dow's engineers came up with a design calling for three plastic parts to do the same work as the 153 metal parts in the traditional mower.

FORBES: Chemical transformation