3D Printing and our Schools

Chelmsford High and Nashoba Valley Tech have always pride themselves on up to date information technology resources and curriculum.

The world is at the beginning of a revolution in production and manufacturing technology commonly called 3D printing or more accurately additive manufacturing.  Objects are usually produced by cutting material, such as machining metal or by extruding material into a mold.  Additive manufacturing produces an item based on a computer program in a specialized design based computer language by injecting liquids from a special printer similar to a common inkjet printer as a series of layers to produce the desired object.  The liquids can be used for specialized parts.  Current research involves liquids related to biological cells.  Major companies, like GE, are speeding up their development cycles by using this technology.  Hobbyists are using this for specialized piecework.

A ‘3D’ printer costs about $5000 with the cost coming down; printers for hobbyists are under $1000.  (There is even a ‘3D’ printing for dummies book.)  The market is anticipated to be over $10 billion a year by the time current middle school students graduate high school, with double digit employment growth rates.

This is a new high potential technology, stressed in recent works like America 3.0 and in the business press as much as the steam engine for the industrial revolution.  Will our local institutions of secondary education incorporate this in their immediate plans?