3D printer is an integral part of Designing Change class

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Photo credit: Noor Qureishy

Sophomore Sophie Jaro uses the 3D printer regularly in her Designing Change classes, creating prototypes and expressing her ideas through the resources the 3D printer provides. “The printer brings ideas to life… We aren’t here to produce mock-ups or drawings in the end. We want to create and explore,” said sophomore Heba Sandozi, another member of a Designing Change class.

Whirring and clicking away, the 3D printer has always been a part of the background in the Upper School library and used only occasionally for individual projects or test runs. This year, the students in the Designing Change class have decided to make it a larger part of their program, using the printer to model their solutions to various problems at school and express their ideas.

“[The students] use the 3D printer for the fun of it, to see what they can do…once they know how to use it, they can solve people’s problems,” Dr. Steve Heilig, co-teacher of the Designing Change class said. So far, one of the groups has designed and created their own funnel to fix the problem with filling up water bottles at drinking fountains.  Another created a model of the dining hall to see if their particular solution would work, filling up all the tables instead of unevenly distributing students. “It’s a hot glue gun, basically, but it’s computer controlled and very precise,” Heilig said.  “It replaces a variety of other tools…It opens the door [for students], lets them see what the possibilities are.”

Sophomore Heba Sandozi, a student in the class agrees, saying “The printer brings ideas to life…The fastest way to figure out if a so called solution to the problem works is to test prototypes. We aren’t here to produce mock-ups or drawings in the end. We want to create and explore and test the limits of what we think will work and what actually works.”