Forging Futures: Metal Casting Summer Youth Program Sparks Interest in Metallurgical Careers

Along with campfire cookware and bronze coins, high school students cast an eye on potential careers in metalworking during Metal Casting: Forge Your Future — a brand-new experience offered through Michigan Technological University's popular Summer Youth Programs.

Offered by Michigan Tech's Summer Youth Programs (SYP) for the first time this summer, Metal Casting: Forge Your Future was developed in partnership with The Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation's (IACMI's) national Metallurgical Engineering Trades Apprenticeship & Learning (METAL) program, and Tech's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). The department is home to Michigan Tech's metal foundry — one of the few fully operational metal foundries in the nation found on a college campus. The facility, MSE's departmental expertise, and the University's ability to partner with METAL created the perfect setup for getting pre-college students excited about the science and art of metal casting and forging.

For students, it was a win-win. They experienced the full metal-casting process and fabricated their own products while also enjoying a taste of college life.

For more than 50 years, SYP has been offering camplike, week-long summer courses for students at the middle and high school levels, giving them a look at the possibilities for technological careers while immersing them in the sights and sounds of Michigan Tech's campus.

As METAL's newest hub operator, Michigan Tech and the MSE department developed Forge Your Future. Designed specifically for high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors, participants get to work directly with Tech researchers in the foundry. As part of their effort to support future metal workers, METAL's partnership with Michigan Tech supports students' tuition, program fees, accommodations, and transportation. During the experience, students also fabricated unique items to take home, including an aluminum scratch block, bronze coin, and cast-iron campfire pan.

The Forge Your Future summer program organizers are well aware of how important this introduction to metal careers can be for students at this age. If not for a similar Tech summer program, MSE academic and lab coordinator Isabella Jaszczak wouldn't be here herself.

"When I was a student, I didn't know that materials science or metallurgy was a career I could go into until I did a camp here at Michigan Tech," said Isabella Jaszczak. "Having the opportunity for students to figure out if this is something they enjoy, and that if they do, it's a good career, is really important."

Isabella Jaszczak said that she and her fellow organizers intentionally developed the program for high school-aged students. It was a fairly unique approach.

"Many other metal programs focus on college-age students or young adults looking for a career change," said Rodney Wakeham, MSE communications specialist. "I think METAL was intrigued that our focus was going to be on high school-aged students, to start that nurturing earlier. As opposed to a second career, maybe we can gain some interest and passion so this can be those students' first career."

The Life of Heavy Metal Campers

High school students participating in the Forge Your Future program spent five days on Tech's campus, where they worked through the entire metal-casting process in Tech's foundry.

"From making molds to making patterns, we tried to show them the whole process," said Peter Jaszczak, MSE lab associate and foundry staff. "We ran simulations, doing some computer-aided design work, and then we made the patterns, which were turned into the final casting."

Students worked on multiple metal projects throughout the week, using different fabrication processes to forge their creations. They began with the simple technique of open-faced molds, then advanced to a more precise technique in investment casting.

But before diving into full-on metal casting, the students started with something a little sweeter: chocolate. "We teach them how to make molds out of brown sugar and then they cast chocolate," said Peter Jaszczak. "It's a lot lower stakes and fun, and the students learn the basics of making molds."

The chocolate casting process, playfully called the Wonka Foundry, is a key step for students in understanding how metal casting works. "When we actually get them into the foundry, there's a higher likelihood that we have a good yield," said Peter Jaszczak.

During their field trip to Grede Foundry in Iron Mountain, Michigan, the students toured a full production-scale foundry and met working metallurgists.

For both students and organizers, the foundry visit was a high point. "No matter how many YouTube videos you've watched, to see the casting done live is huge for those students," said Isabella Jaszczak.

Organizers wanted Forge Your Future to culminate in a memorable way that let students take home a unique — and recognizable — reminder of their metal-working experience. They landed on the perfect final project: a square cast-iron campfire pan, also known colloquially as a pudgie pie pan, which students could personalize with a matchplate (the term for a two-sided casting pattern) of their own design.

"There's a joy that comes from learning something, and then there's a joy that comes from making something. At the end of the camp, being able to hold something in their hands that they made, that's a different feeling that not every camp or major can offer students."Isabella Jaszczak, academic and lab coordinator, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

"Our foundry makes fry pans all the time, we make coaster tokens, (but) this is the first time we produced this many campfire pans at once," said Isabella Jaszczak, who developed the idea with the help of other foundry staff. "These pans will stay exclusive to this camp."

The metalworks that students take home are more than a summer-camp memento — they will help students visualize the possibilities of a career they might not otherwise have considered.

With the first successful Forge Your Future summer program in the books, the MSE department is looking forward to hosting future METAL Bootcamps this year for college-age students, as well as the return of the SYP program next summer.

Michigan Technological University is an R1 public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan's flagship technological university offers more than 185 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.