afsbirmingham.org

Check out the photo gallery and the foundry in a box page for new pictures that were just posted.

The May 2013 Newsletter is now available online. Check it out for all the details about the upcoming meeting. Also check out the “Next Meeting” page for details as well.

Greetings Birmingham Chapter!
The end of another AFS year has arrived! Our final meeting is May 13th at the Wynfrey and it is a special one. In addition to having our AFS National President, Mike Selz, coming to speak to us, we will be honoring all of those who have presided as Chairman of our Birmingham Chapter. This is always a great way to end our year with a little retrospective before the newly seated officers and directors turn their attention to the future in the summer planning meeting. I hope you will join us for the fellowship, to see some folks that might not have been around as much lately and to show your appreciation for our Board of Directors and Officers who have been serving so faithfully.

I want to express my thanks to all of those who have been supporting our chapter through their time, their attendance and their donations. I hope all of you will give some consideration over the summer to increasing your participation in AFS in some way. Whether it be coming to meetings, getting involved in a committee of some kind, increasing your donation amount; there are so many ways your gifts and talents can be used to
reinvest in this industry that puts food on our tables. If any of you would like to receive information about ways you can participate. please let us know. We’d love to add a few seats around the table during our board
meetings or set a few more plates for dinner at our regular meetings. Please do not assume that someone else will always be around to maintain this great chapter. It just doesn’t work as well without your involvement.

Thank you to the many Directors and Officers that I’ve had the privilege of serving with these last three years. I can honestly say that everything is owed to this group for keeping the wheels of this chapter turning! We are lucky to have so many who are willing to volunteer! Donnie, it’s just about that time.

See you at the Wynfrey,
Ed

Pictures from the Christmas Party. November, October and September 2012 meetings have been added to the gallery. Check them out here.

On September 18, 2012, the AFS Birmingham Chapter donated a complete foundry kit to the Calera High School Engineering Academy. These students have already designed and produced castings with the cooperation of local foundries. This equipment will enable the students to make prototype castings in their classroom. The kit contained safety equipment, two melting units, crucibles, flasks, patterns, molding tools, oil bonded zircon flour, thirty pounds of pure tin, containers and a number of hand tools.
On the same date, the engineering program at Calera High School received national recognition from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Educational Foundation. They were recognized as one of only fifteen PRIME Schools in the nation. This award includes a fifteen thousand dollar grant.

The Calera Engineering Academy students are active in hands-on engineering experiences. They produce bio-diesel in the classroom for a rugged Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) which they designed and built. They build electric cars. They also designed and manufactured a low cost adjustable prosthetic leg. They traveled to Honduras last summer to help fit fourteen patients with the legs while also delivering a BUV to a remote mountain village to serve as an ambulance and school bus. They also built attachments for the BUV to drill water wells and plow fields.

Click here to read an article in the Shelby County Reporter about Brian Copes, a teacher at Calera Engineering Academy whose class is using the Foundry in a Box. Mr. Copes was recently selected as one of 5 recipients of People Magazine’s inaugural “Teacher of the Year” competition.

Click here for an article about Mr. Cope’s class on the local Fox website.

Click here for the article on People’s website.

Click here to visit the Education page of our website to view all other ongoing activities.

Are you interested in sponsoring one of the most active AFS Chapters in the country?
Click here to learn about sponsorship opportunities.

In order to reduce printing and postage costs, we are trying to reduce the number of hard copy newsletters that must be sent each month. If you currently receive the newsletter in hard copy form and would like to change to the email version, please click on the link below and fill out the form on page that the link will take you to.

Click here to visit the Email List Page