ASM Student camps

Edit: This post was originally written a long while ago, back in the spring of 2020. I certainly was under the assumption that summer 2021 would be back to some sort of pre-Covid normal. As of today (1/18/21) the student camp schedule for 2021 has not been posted yet. It looks like the 2021 teacher camp schedule is planned to be fully virtual for 2021 (as it was in 2020), but I have no knowledge beyond what those webpages show.

It's that time of year when many students (and teachers) are starting to plan out the summer.

For teachers, I'll heartily recommend the ASM teacher materials camps. I've posted about them before.

I've also posted about the ASM student materials camps, too, but I've posted much less frequently about them - both because there are fewer of them and because I haven't ever been personally involved in those camps.

I thought I'd take a post today to rectify that and give you a whole bunch of student camp resources.

There's a video about what went on at the Eisenman camp in 2012. The Eisenman is the only ASM student camp that takes place at the ASM headquarters near Cleveland, OH, but there are about twenty other locations (appropriately, as of the summer of 2020) around the country.



This video goes through - as the title suggests - some of the legacy of the first ASM materials camp for students, the Eisenman at the ASM headquarters. They talk to some of the mentors, some former attendees who are now mentors, and ASM trustees about the history of, goals of, and - well - legacy of the Eisenman camp.



The ASM folks also interviewed some of the student attendees at the Eisenman camp one summer (including Lucas, who your friendly, neighborhood blogger was lucky enough to have taught at Princeton HS.). They, in the long run, offer probably the greatest testimonials as they lived the camp. The playlist (embedded above, click next video) also ends with a trio of videos showing some of the activities from the camp (metal casting, blacksmithing, and using a scanning electron microscope).


So, just what are materials camps? This video answers that both about the student and the teacher camps, focusing more on the student camps, though.

The camps are free. What do you have to lose?

Take a look at the student camp schedule for this summer - or the teacher camp schedule if that's more your speed.

Eisenmann Camp 2015 - an inside view

The Eisenmann student material camp takes place each summer at Materials Park, and this summer I was thrilled to send one of my students up for the week-long, zero-cost (other than getting himself there) introductory week of materials education.

Upon his return, Lucas was even willing to - admittedly, at my request - write up a bit about his time under the dome so all of you could see what the student camps are like.

Check it out...

Eisman Material Science Camp

I am a former student of the marvelous Mr. Lonnie Dusch. I love the subject of chemistry, which he just happened to teach, He recommended that I apply for the Eisman Material Science Camp for students because it was chemistry related, and it involved things that he taught me outside of my class. I thought this would be a great experience for me to meet new people and learn more about the subject I love. I applied and was accepted to attend the camp. I went to the camp over the summer and spent one week there. Students were supposed to meet at the hotel that we were all staying at. Once I arrived I noticed just how nice of a hotel it was. It had an arcade, a pool, and its own restaurant.

One of the great parts was that I didn’t have to pay for any of it. It was all free. Getting accepted into the program was considered a scholarship which was used to pay for almost everything during the week. This meant that our meals were free, the hotel was free, the equipment and supplies we used were free. The only thing we did have to pay for was the games in the arcade. After we got to the hotel and met our roommates, we went to ASM material parks. Most of the students, including myself, had seen pictures of it, but never seen it in person. It was an average sized building with a garden full of plants and the ore of almost every metal. All this was sitting under the largest geodesic in the world. It was an enormous aluminum structure and we all stared at during the sunset.

After we arrived we ate dinner and were broken up into groups. Each group was assigned a mentor. After this we went in our groups and took different things apart, mainly by breaking them. Next we went back to our hotel.

The following day we presented what we found the night before from breaking things. After this our mentors presented their groups with projects for the week. All of the projects were determining how and why something broke. Our group’s project was to determine while a weld broke in an odd way during a bend test. We made guesses on the first day but had no evidence to prove it, so throughout the week my group did several different things to prove our theories. The first thing we noticed is that we couldn’t see the fracture surface of our project very well. So what do we do? Break it more of course! We made the metal very brittle by cooling it with liquid nitrogen. After this we took a few pictures with a microscope.

For the rest of the week we continued to do different tests to prove our theories. We had access to an electron microscope which we used to view very small features of the fracture surface. We searched for small craters that would indicate impurities in the metal but we didn’t find any. We also used the electron microscope to determine the type of metals used in the weld through spectroscopy. We used metallography to support what we thought the metal was made of and to look for any weaker points in the metal. We found the different sections of the weld by doing this, but didn’t find many signs of weak spots or any outstanding reasons for breaking. We tried a hardness test to find if different parts of the weld were softer. We found little useable data in our results. Toward the end of the week we still didn't have a solid answer for as to why the weld broke the way it did. Finally we went back to look at our first pictures of the welds. We looked up how a weld was done and how it was prepared for a bend test. We noticed that the answer was simple and didn’t even have much to do with how our sample was welded. The weld was simply prepared improperly for the bend test.

Finally we had our answer and next came an even bigger challenge. We had to share our entire week's worth of research in a five slide presentation. After picking the most important things and lots of rearranging, we finally had a good presentation. We left our work room nervously to go to dinner. We knew we would be presenting after dinner, and not only to the other students, but to all of our parents, all of the mentors, a few ASM board members, and even the president of ASM. After dinner we were even more stressed to present, but when they called our group up we were prepared. After our presentation everyone happily applauded us for having done so much in only a week. I felt so proud to have given a professional presentation to several professional people, and to have them accept what we found.

Although our main project took up most of our time it wasn't all we worked on. We also had many different activities throughout the week. We did metal castings with pewter, and later sand castings with aluminum. We used liquid nitrogen to make ice cream and blow up bottles. We even got to try blacksmithing. We had a pool party one evening, and a few people played pool each night.

My favorite part of the week was getting to meet all the people there. In school I’m used to being in groups and being the only one who did any work, but it was the opposite here. Everyone in my group put in a great deal of effort and worked hard. People also came from all over the U.S. and even from another country. My roommate was from california and another student was all the way from Germany. The mentors were from several different places too too. Everyone there was extremely friendly and helpful. Everyone got along well and helped each other. I made many new friends who I know I will never forget.

The Eisman Material Science Camp was an amazing experience and I’m extremely happy to have been a part of it. I’m thankful that Mr. Dusch recommended me to apply to it. I learned a great deal while I was at the camp, and now have experience working in a real laboratory. I may even try to return as a mentor in the future.

Big thanks to Lucas (for the story and for the kind words). Check out some photos of Lucas (no, I won't tell you which one he is, sorry) and the rest of the campers thanks to ASM's Facebook page over at the album I gathered and posted.

ASM Materials Camp 2006

"I heard that...we're going to be breaking some stuff and seeing what's inside of it. That's what I do at home, anyway, and this way my mom doesn't yell at me."

Great summary there, Dan, of what we do in the teachers camps, too.

I really want to get up to Einseman some summer to see what the students are doing at their summer camp, particularly the Eisenman at the ASM headquarters because it pulls from students all around the country.

Blacksmith demo at Eisenman Materials Camp 2012

Yeah, most of the time when we have high school students forging something, we aren't happy.

Here, though, we're thrilled to see the students at the Eisenman student material science camp doing a bit of forging.

I need to get up to one of the summer student camps sometime to see just how cool they are.

...or how hot in this case...

ASM Materials Camp at Lehigh University

"We just shown them there are all the cool things people can do."

I've never been to one of the student summer camps, but I have tried to get a couple of our Princeton material science students to attend (sadly with no success yet).

They look like fun, though, particularly breaking windshields with baseballs.

Mini Materials Camp

Each time there is an MS&T conference, the ASM folks try to be there to run a mini-materials camp. The ASM folks invite local teachers to bring their classes (sometimes even paying for transportation) and see some of the glory that is materials science.

This series of videos shows the process of casting tin using a microwave oven. The process of sand casting is fascinating to watch and still an important industrial process.

The process is broken up into five parts - the remaining four of which are after the jump.

Today's post finishes with another demonstration from the mini-materials camp: the phase change of iron wire.

The mini camps aren't nearly a replacement for the week-long summer camps, but they're great ways to expose your students to materials science if you happen to be lucky enough to be in the area of an MS&T conference - like the Indianapolis folks are this fall (September 2013).

2012 Eisenman Materials Camp Lab

This video - published on ASM's YouTube channel - takes a quick tour of the Eisenman Materials Science camp, ASM's longest ongoing summer student camp. Since this camp was first run more than a decade ago now, the program has expanded to more than twenty-five student camp around the country.

The camps are largely run by volunteers and see the students broken up into five- and six-student teams who then work on a single project for the week under the supervision of an industry mentor/expert. It makes for a spectacular introduction to the world of materials science for the students who get to attend.

Check out the full camp schedule and start thinking about which of your students should be attending these entirely free camps.

ASM Materials Camp 2012

I kinda wish I would've gotten to go to an ASM materials camp when I was a high school student. I'm thinking that if I had, I might've ended up heading down a different path.

Not that I don't love my job now. I do love it. Especially if my principal happens to stumble upon this blog. I love my job and my boss.

This video gives a glimpse into the week-long student summer materials camps. In the camps the students are broken into small (five- or six-student) groups and spend the week exploring an group-specific problem. Along the way, the whole group comes together for some materials instruction and a few activities - like the forging going on under the tent above. It's a very different set-up from the teacher camps and one that lets the students be even more hands on.

The above video captures some highlights from and interviews at the Eisenman Materials Science camp that takes place each summer at the ASM headquarters in Materials Park, OH - one of more than twenty student camps each summer. Check out the full camp schedule on the ASM foundation website.