3D Printing:

A new technological frontier

From experts to novices, anyone with an idea can make a difference.

Keri Guten Cohen I Story Development Editor

re you tech savvy?
Well, it's easy to admit
you can't live without
your computer and
that you're fairly lost
without your smart-
phone. Just beware.
The next wave of
technology may take a little getting
used to. But don't worry; simply ask
someone a bit younger to explain 3D
printing.
If you're lucky, that young person
will be Jacob Banooni, 12, of Bloom-
field Hills. He's a seventh-grader at
Hillel Day School in Farmington
Hills who is totally geeked about his
school having a 3D printer in its new
Innovation Hub that just opened a
month ago.
He admits he's watched every
YouTube video available about 3D
printing. Somehow he has them cata-
logued so neatly in his head that he
can recall exactly which one will solve
the problem he and his teacher ran
up against in printing bright orange
plastic saws for Hillel first graders to
use in their project.
Rather than buying more of the
saws designed for little hands to
safely cut cardboard, Jacob suggested
they could just print them on their
3D printer, which creates three-
dimensional objects layer by layer
from a plastic filament by following a
computer-generated design program.
It was a perfect solution ... until
they hit that snag in the program that
left the backside of the saw unfin-
ished. By working collaboratively,
Jacob and Trevett Allen, director of
innovation, are solving that problem.
"It's a lot more fun doing this as a
team than doing it myself;" Allen said.
"He's my right-hand man. He has a
whole resource in his head."
The technology fits right in with
Hillel's learning philosophy.

42 November 2014 I

RED THREAD

"That's what I love about this," said
Joan Freedman, director of curricu-
lum and the library. "We are taking
digital natives [young people who
grew up with technology] and we are
using technology to solve problems.
We are taking education in a new,
relevant, useful way."
Aside from printing small trinkets
— a tiny traffic cone, a small animal
sculpture, several joined links and
a comb — a group of students have
used the 3D printer to help create a
sign for the Hillel computer office
that lets students know if their lap-
tops are repaired and ready to pick
up. And there's a tie-in to a website
that will provide the information
online, too.
"Welcome to their world," said
Steve Freedman, head of school.
'We are giving them the tools and
experience for them to be success-
ful. Imagination is limitless if you
give them the space, the tools and a
problem. The 3D printer is one tool
among many."

Watching an object printed layer by layer on Hillel Day School's 3D printer: seventh-graders
Scott Siegel (in window), Jacob Banooni and Alex Aisner with Trevett Allen, director of in-
novation.

P

3D WHAT?

Use of 3D printing has revved up in
recent years and grabbed more at-
tention, especially in medicine with
the printing of affordable prosthetics,
artificial vertebrae (see sidebar, page
45) and more, but the technology
itself is three decades old. In 1984,
Charles Hull created a solid imaging
process known as stereolithography
for use in industry.
Hull founded South Carolina-
based 3D Systems, one of the largest
makers of 3D printers in the world.
The other is Stratasys, which merged
in 2012 with Objet, an Israeli com-
pany. Stratasys has dual headquarters
in Rehovot, Israel, and Eden Prairie,
Minn. Both companies now are head-
ed by Jewish men — Avi Reichental
at 3D Systems and Israeli David Reis

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These 3D-printed items were made by Hillel Day School students in the school's Innovation
Hub.

at Stratasys.
At first, applications for 3D print-
ing were industrial. As opposed to
traditional reductive manufacturing,
where parts are hewn from raw mate-
rials, as in tool and die work, additive

manufacturing creates something
from nothing by adding layer upon
layer of molten material directed
precisely through inkjets following
a computer-generated three-dimen-
sional design until the desired object

