Foundry fires up for hands-on fun

So during open founder day, we invite the community, and so undergrads, we invite potential students. We invite elementary schools, students as long as eight years or older, to come with pants and closed toe shoes. And that's like a big deal, close to choose kid show up and sandals and you're like, No, we don't have shoes. It'll fit you. And we give them a presentation about what we do with the boundary. Then we give them a scratch plate mode, which is a bonded sand mold. And it has kind of like a square impression. And then they can scratch or design in. And then we pour an iron, break it out of the mold. We grind off any sharp edges. We grit blasted which ones we just shoot a bunch of sand at it really fast to get rid of the sharp burned in sand. And then we spray painted with a clear lacquer so that it doesn't rust. And then we give it to them at the end of their time. At the open boundary points of foundry science is, it's not going anywhere. It's one of probably the oldest forms of metalworking. And it's one of those things where it teaches you a lot of principles. And it also teaches you that I think a lot of scientists get really caught up in being as accurate as possible. At a lot of foundry science is we do our best. But sometimes it's raining and then sometimes it's sunny and you're gonna get different results. I think it teaches you to be really confident. It teaches people that there's an engineering science out there that is really dynamic. Even though it is old and more mature. And there's still more to learn about this field of study. And I think it would push people to say like, Hey, some of these engineers in these boundary positions are aging out of their position. And you can go in and run a lot of money and be really proud of your work. And these foundry sciences.