SCHOOL WORK
INstructor Hopes to Influence Students with
Foundry in a Box
Tom Cobett knows firsthand how important mentoring and student outreach can be in higher education. While studying industrial education at Kent State Univer- sity (Kent, Ohio), he received a Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) scholarship. Now, after four decades as an R&D spe- cialist in the field, he promotes metalcast- ing educational programs at colleges and universities to attract and develop young talent in the industry. “For many of us in the metalcasting industry, we can cite the name of one or two older people who directly influenced us in our choice for a career,” Cobett said. “They helped us at a critical time in our lives, and now it is time for us to help other young people.” Cobett has been involved in the devel- opment of “Foundry in a Box,” an inno- vative tool for building relationships with the industry’s next generation. The project started in 2005 as the senior project of Stephanie Vogelpohl, Brianna Clemens and Sarah Weigle, three students at Trine Univ. (Angola, Indiana) who wanted to develop a simple, safe, clean way to demonstrate the
MELTING POINT
basics of metalcasting. The prototype unit, which involved molding, melting, pouring and finishing a small casting, was used immediately at the ASM International’s Materials Camps.
FEF Key Professor Mike Dragomier and a team of students at Kent State reduced the size of the original concept to fit into portable shipping boxes, and it has since been condensed to a single box. Foundry in a Box allows students to create castings by ramming non-toxic, smokeless sand into a small flask to make a matchplate mold, melting tin in a special crucible designed for use in a conventional micro- wave and safely pouring the molten metal into the mold.
Now, the American Foundry Society facilitates the sales of these kits to chap- ters, groups and schools for demonstra- tions around the country.
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