High school students enjoy hands-on metal-casting workshop

In June at the 2008 Metal-casting Workshop, Dr. Sam Ramrattan, an IME professor, shared the tools of the metal-casting trade with nine high school students. This year’s students came from Mesick, Saginaw, and Saline, Mich.; Brook Park and Defiance, Ohio; Stroudsburg, Penn.; and Trinidad, West Indies.

Ramrattan, a technical advisor to the American Foundrymen's Society and a Key Professor for the Foundry Educational Foundation, held classes and lab work in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Parkview Campus Metal Casting Laboratory.

“Dr. Sam,” as he is known at the college, has hosted a weeklong metal-casting workshop every summer for the last nine years. This year’s hands-on event was similar to the previous ones.

The course is a balance of lecture topics on metal casting history, methods, and trends; networking; and hands-on metal casting. Students examined metal casting from several perspectives: manufacturing (molding, melting, filling, and finishing), engineering, quality, purchasing, marketing, and sales. They also explored the use of computers, math, and science in metal casting.

In addition to their lab and course work, the students learned about WMU programs and requirements from administrators and met with a panel of industrial professionals and the Foundry Educational Foundation. (FEF) to review career opportunities in metal casting.

The workshop included visits to area foundries to see real-world technology. This year’s attendees toured A.C. Foundry, Battle Creek, MI, and Contech’s die casting facilities in Dowagiac, MI. They also enjoyed activities in the Kalamazoo / Portage metro area.

Students who attended the program were selected on the basis of aptitude for math and science and were sponsored by various chapters of the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). There was no cost to the students, who stayed in WMU dorms and enjoyed campus life.

WMU’s metal-casting program is over 100 years old. Its most recent accreditation was when Ramrattan joined the faculty in 1992. Metal casting is presently an option in all IME undergraduate programs. For more information, contact Dr. Sam at sam.ramrattan@wmich.edu