Every summer for the last decade, Dr. Sam Ramrattan, an IME professor, has been offering a weeklong, hands-on metal-casting workshop for high school students. At the 2009 workshop held last month, 10 students from the U.S. and Canada spent a week as college metal-casting students.
One element that makes the workshop fun is the hands-on aspect. “Dr. Sam,” as many refer to him, had students do real metal-casting work in the Metal Casting Laboratory at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Parkview Campus.
The students made molds, melted metal, and poured. “It’s a fun way to learn about metal casting,” said Luke Gossen, a Plymouth, Minnesota, junior.
Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) oversees the students as they prepare
the molds that they will test with molten metal.
Ramrattan is a technical advisor to the American Foundrymen's Society and a Key Professor for the Foundry Educational Foundation. He offers the summer hands-on workshop to identify and promote the variety of viable metal-casting careers available today. It is open to up to 15 area tenth-through-twelfth-grade students.
In addition to the lab work, the workshop offered lectures and discussions on metal casting history, methods, and trends. Students examined metal casting from the perspectives of manufacturing (molding, melting, filling, and finishing), engineering, quality control, purchasing, marketing, and sales. They also networked with metal casters at area foundries.
Students attending this year’s metal casting workshop donned safety
apparel to pour molten aluminum into sand molds they
prepared. Dr. Sam Ramrattan (left) oversees the process.
Jordan Kimble, a senior in the manufacturing technology program and IME’s 2009 top manufacturing engineering senior, assisted in the workshop. He will represent IME at the upcoming Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) conference.
WMU administrators provided the students with materials about programs and requirements at WMU. Students also reviewed career opportunities with a panel of industrial professionals and FEF.
The workshop included visits to area foundries to see real-world technology. Their tours included A.C. Foundry, Battle Creek, MI, and Metals Technologies’ Three Rivers Gray Iron Plant. The students also enjoyed activities in the Kalamazoo / Portage 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.
In a thank-you note to Ramrattan following the workshop, Joshua Jarvis-Peters from Ontario, Canada, praised the workshop. “I wish it had been longer,” he said.
WMU’s metal-casting program is over 100 years old. The most recent accreditation began in 1992. Contact Dr. Sam for more information on WMU metal casting or on the summer workshop, at sam.ramrattan@wmich.edu
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