The Antioch Community High School Information and Learning Center provides students with a quiet place to study and get help, relax and discover new information, and now, the ILC is providing students with innovative new technology.

Early this semester, ACHS introduced 3D printers. The concept sounds life it comes out of a sci-fi movie, but these printers are reality. 3D printers are able to produce a physical product out of a digital design in just a few short hours.

“3D printers can be described as Etch a Sketch meets hot glue gun. For instance, a thin filament of plastic is pulled into a hot nozzle. The nozzle moves around a build-plate outlining the object to be made,” technology education teacher Jon Salaban said. “The nozzle fills in the object, usually with a honeycomb pattern. The object is built layer by layer.”

What kinds of things can these printers make? Anything from sunglasses to toys to a model of a molecular structure.

This new technology will benefit teachers and students alike.

“Students will benefit from 3D printers by being able to make a physical representation of a virtual design. 3D printing is the application of science, math, and technology. Students get motivated to learn because they are actually making something, not just reading about it in a textbook. The ideas are endless,” Salaban said.