As an important teaching module of metalworking practice course, casting consists of sand casting, lost foam casting and 3D precision casting.Due to limited internship time, students only have one day to practice sand casting.

The original practice content of sand casting includes three basic modeling methods, i.e. moulding, sand excavation and sub-moulding. The whole moulding is demonstrated and explained by the instructor and the students carry out the whole moulding practice operation on the basis. The sand excavation is guided by heuristic teaching method. At first, the students are guided to face the difficulties in sand excavation and the relationship between the maximum cross section of the pattern and the parting surface is analyzed.The students consolidate the learning content by having problems in practice and demonstrating the instructions by their instructor.

The parting design mainly enables students to understand the structural characteristics of the pattern and the function of the sand core and the core head; because the largest section of the casting is in the middle, in order to facilitate the molding, the pattern should be made into components to open the pattern, thus leading to the parting design; when the two boxes parting design, the parting surface and the parting pattern coincide, and the students can guide the concept of the instructor and explain by demonstration, the most important thing is toFinal production of a set of sand molds independently and complete pouring and sand fall cleaning.

However, due to the monotonous and monotonous contents of the original practical teaching, slightly rigid teaching mode, insufficient space for students to play their own initiative, low interest of students in learning, and failure to establish an overall understanding of sand casting, the expected teaching effect can not be achieved.Figure 1a-c is a sample of the student practice exercises and the corresponding casting.