3D Printing Takes off at Newark Academy
By: Newark Academy
Tags: 3D Printing, Newark Academy, STEM

By Sherrie Negrea

Newark Academy students are learning to build sustainable cities, replicas of museum sculptures, and facilities to sustain human life on Mars without ever leaving their classrooms.

In the Upper School, a course on 3D printing has enrolled a total of 150 students since it was launched a decade ago during June Term — the last two weeks of the school year, when Upper School students immerse themselves in an intensive, experiential class. In the Middle School, a science course has long incorporated 3D printing to help students understand and propose solutions to major world problems, such as climate change.

When Upper School physics teacher Drew Kesler created his 3D Printing and Technical Drawing course in 2012, he didn’t know it would become one of the most popular June Term offerings. In the course, students produce a self-designed 3D object and also create a model of a sculpture they select during a field trip to the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J.

Jonah Grossman '27 uses a dremel to clean up the 3D printing of his sustainable city model.

“As much as it is a course in 3D printing, which is pretty technical, it’s also a design course in learning how to use the software and creating something that is aesthetically pleasing or functional — or both,” Drew says.

For Drew’s students, the process of creating a three-dimensional object starts with determining what shapes comprise the piece they want to produce, measuring them, and then creating the forms and positioning them using two software programs, SketchUp and OpenSCAD. One important lesson they learn in the class is that 3D printing requires patience because their first attempt is likely to fail.

“You just do it again and again and it gets better and better,” Drew says. “I think that’s a valuable mindset, to know that you’re not going to get it right the first time.”

In her course, Interactive Investigations in Science, Middle School science teacher Debra Tavares uses 3D printing to empower students to tackle real- world problems, such as mitigating climate change and enabling human exploration of Mars.

Students in Debra Tavares’s sixth grade class clean up their 3D-printed sustainable city model.

The assignment for the course’s sustainability unit is to create a city that meets human needs while avoiding all waste. The students’ final projects, standing up to seven inches tall, are produced by the 3D printer on a plate the size of a piece of notebook paper.

Debra says she added 3D projects to the course when a parent donated a Makerbot printer to her about 15 years ago. “I immediately added 3D printing to my science course,” she says, “because I could see how it could be used to solve problems and inspire the innovative process.”

According to Drew, learning to operate 3D printers is particularly useful for students interested in engineering and architecture. In his June Term course, for example, students learn how to use computer-aided design (CAD) software, a standard professional tool, to create their projects.

Adrien Chouraqui ’22 was introduced to 3D printing when he took the June Term course two years ago. When he interned at a gallery in Paris this past summer, working on a team with designers and manufacturers to produce art for the space, he discovered that the technology is used extensively in the art world.

Adrien, who plans to study architecture in college, has continued working on 3D projects during the school year with Drew, sometimes spending up to 12 hours on a single design. “The 3D printers give us access to creative freedom,” Adrien says. “As a person who can’t live without creative projects, it brings unconditional fun to school.”

Because 3D printing has become an essential tool in a growing number of industries, Debra says it will remain part of her curriculum. “With computer- aided design software and 3D printing,” she says, “if you can think it, you can design it and you can 3D model it; essentially, you can make a new reality.”