METAL Bootcamp graduates are ready to enter the casting and forging industry. Our incredible partners offer these bootcamps at a growing number of Universities and industry sites across the country. With new partner sites coming online across the country, we’re reaching more people than ever. New METAL partner Colorado School of Mines (Mines) will allow us to take our hands-on bootcamps even further with a new mobile STEM learning environment. Mines also granted us access to their Edgar Experimental Mine, allowing us to film the first footage for an exciting new project.  

Hitting the Road 

The “MMM” (Mobile METAL Manufacturing) unit is an upcoming transportable learning center being developed by MINES. The 18-wheeler based training site will allow mines to take METAL bootcamps across the western U.S. and beyond. While other METAL mobile units focus on K-12 outreach, the MMM offers the same experience found at METAL sites across the country.  A METAL hat sitting on a piece of equipment in a metal shop.

“We have been amazed by the level of interest generated by the Mobile METAL Manufacturing training 18-wheeler. Industry partners and educational institutions alike immediately recognize the value of bringing advanced, hands-on manufacturing training directly to their locations,” says Mines METAL Project Lead, Professor Terry Lowe PhD.  

The trailer will offer a full suite of equipment, allowing the Mines team to bring the full bootcamp experience to schools, events, and industry sites. This includes furnaces and sand for melting and pouring molten metal. A machine shop section will allow participants to process their completed cast and forged pieces, while microscopes, tensile testers, and other equipment will be used to cover the testing phase. 

From Earth to Orbit (or aerospace, or ocean) 

Mines offers courses in bladesmithing, has competed several times in the Cast In Steel competition, and can cast and forge steel in its university foundry. There’s a reason, however, that the school is called Colorado School of Mines. For over a century, Mines has operated the Edgar Experimental Mine, doing far more than just training miners. The former gold and silver mine is used to train rescue teams, conduct research for quantum physics, and serves as a living museum of Colorado’s mining history.  

A long shot down a lit mine shaft.

The Edgar Mine has been used for teaching for over a century.

As part of METAL’s efforts to promote the importance of the casting and forging industry and fill the coming skills gap, the METAL team began developing a new documentary-style project detailing the life of metal from the time it’s dug out of the earth to the finished product. Dr. Lowe and Mine Forman Clint Dattel provided METAL with access to film inside the mine, kickstarting the project.  

“It was a thrill to film in the Edgar Mine and around the Mines campus. This project will go a long way toward showing the importance of METAL and the need to fill so many jobs in and around the casting and forging industry,” said METAL Communications Specialist Jeffery Ledington.

“Earth to Orbit” (final name TBD) is an exciting opportunity to highlight the many jobs metal touches, and that need to be filled. Be on the lookout!