For many schools, acquiring 3D printers is the next step in the technological age, but at RTMA, STEM faculty is surging well beyond that already long-surpassed goal and is now having their students construct their own personal machines.

What started off as one student’s experiment last semester has now burgeoned into a mass effort by over a dozen young men who have signed on for the special summer STEM session.

Housed in the Rav Teitz Mesivta Academy’s innovative STEM labs, fondly dubbed “Area 251,” the program filled to capacity early and every space is taken by students engaged in the technical and technological processes of building their own functioning devices.

Lead by STEM Director Robyn Brewer, she and another full-time faculty member are on hand to steward the process, but are allowing some of the older students to guide their younger peers and encourage the first-timers to conduct their own research and problem-solve as they progress.

The young men are learning everything from construction to engineering and programming and just about everything in between. One student pair commented on how by working together, he and his partner are able to share and expand on their own individual ideas.

A blue plastic dragon, printed by one of RTMA’s commercially-acquired 3D printers, has become the summer mascot of sorts and serves as a visual reminder of the kind of creative expression the boys will be able to achieve once they have completed their projects at the culmination of the session.