For some of our top students, Immersion Lab Week is both the culmination of their 3D ThinkLink experience and a springboard for them to leap into the next stage of their lives.
Thirteen cadets from Maryland’s Freestate ChalleNGe Academy, the District of Columbia’s Capital Guardian Youth ChalleNGe Academy and South Carolina Youth ChalleNGe Academy traveled to YouthQuest’s 3D ThinkLink Creativity Lab in Chantilly, Virginia, for advanced training this year.
3D ThinkLink instructors at the academies select deserving cadets twice a year, near the end of the ChalleNGe programs’ class cycles. Coming so close to graduation, Lab Week gives the at-risk teens we serve a chance to see how far they’ve come and focus on what’s next.
“We do this to see how we’ve done in teaching the students, to introduce them to new experiences they didn’t get in their regular classes at the academies, and to show them where they can go from here,” explained YouthQuest Director of Instruction Tom Meeks, who leads the advanced training sessions.
On one level, Lab Week is a reward for the cadets’ outstanding performance in 3D class. Spending their days immersed in 3D learning and creativity is a welcome break from the regimented routine of their academies. Plus, they’re delighted to stay in a nice hotel instead of their barracks for a few nights.
“It helped me expand my imagination,” said Freestate Cadet Jessie Hickman. “We can make just about anything we can imagine. It’s really cool.”
Our lab is where Jessie and his fellow students got their first chance to work with a 3D scanner and a full-color powder-bed 3D printer last month.
“When I found out you can 3D print what you scan, I wanted to take the most complicated thing and see if I could print it,” he said.
The November Lab group evaluated the new 3D scanning features of Sony’s Xperia XZ1 phone. In May, students worked with several kinds of handheld scanners, cameras and Cappasity 3D visualization software. Both groups experimented with various scanning and lighting techniques to develop “best practices” recommendations for the manufacturers, which they presented in panel discussion videos.
Soft Skills and Hard Work
Along with exploring 3D scanning, both Lab Week groups dug deeper into the capabilities of their Moment of Inspiration design software, going beyond what they had time to do during their on-campus classes. They took on some challenging projects and, in the process of completing them, had to practice the life skills that are at the heart of our 3D ThinkLink Initiative.
“3D changes your perspective on things. If you want to design something, you have to think about it before you start, plan it all out in your head,” explained Capital Guardian Cadet Ashley Walker in our lab last month. “It taught me patience because I’m not a patient person. Don’t get frustrated with every new thing, because you can do it!”
“I like hands-on stuff, so being here I can actually involve myself by working,” said South Carolina Youth ChalleNGe Academy Cadet Cassie Myers during her week in the lab in May. “I used to struggle a lot with working with people. This has helped me with that. We have to work together to get a project done. Teamwork makes the dream work!”
Freestate’s Trevor Haney, who earned a YouthQuest scholarship in June for the essay he wrote about his 3D ThinkLink experience, also enjoyed getting to know and work with students from other ChalleNGe programs. In addition to teamwork, the program taught him our most important lesson: Failure is not final.
“Before, if something didn’t turn out right or the way I wanted, I would just give up,” said Trevor. “But being in 3D and being here these past couple of days, I’ve learned you can re-do something. And if it fails, change something. It will fix the whole thing and make it better each time.”
Persistence, collaboration, innovative thinking, problem solving and communication are among the “soft skills” our program instills in at-risk youth, along with the “hard skills” of using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software and 3D printers. It’s a combination that’s prized by employers.
Students like Daniel Fickens from SCYCA, who wants a career in the construction industry, know their 3D ThinkLink skills will strengthen their resumes. When they’re asked to give examples of their qualifications in job interviews, they’ll be able to talk about what they did during Lab Week.
“At first, looking at the stuff you had built, I never thought it would be me getting on a computer and doing it myself,” said Daniel after seeing 3D-printed architectural models of homes and commercial buildings in our lab. “Knowing 3D printing can help me in construction moving forward.”
Sthephanie Alvarez-Vega was hesitant to take our class at first because she’d already been picked for the welding program at Freestate.
“I’m glad I didn’t choose welding because I wouldn’t have had all these great experiences in 3D class. This is going to help me a whole lot in finding a job,” she said. “Like putting this on my resume. Imagine someone who’s bilingual with 3D printing experience. I have more of a chance to have a good career.”
‘Break Things, Make Things and Try Things’
The students in the May Lab group heard some valuable career-planning advice during their visit to 3D printer manufacturer M3D.
“Break things, make things and try things. And don’t be afraid to fail at all because that’s where you’re going to learn the most,” Chief Operating Officer J.J. Biel-Goebel told the cadets as he showed them around M3D’s research and production facility in Fulton, Maryland. “And don’t give up. That’s the other important thing. Keep bashing your head against the wall until you figure it out.”
He explained that “we fail a lot” in the process of prototyping new kinds of 3D printers – and each failure leads to an improvement in the next version of the design.
Biel-Goebel said that’s why he asks all job applicants to talk about something they’ve made. He wants them to describe what worked and didn’t work, and what changes they made.
Hiring managers are looking for people who “learn how to learn,” he continued. Taking on projects that require you to teach yourself new skills, as students do throughout their 3D ThinkLink experience, makes you more valuable to an employer.
“Nobody is going to get it right the first time, every time,” he said. “I want someone who knows that, knows what their limitations are, knows what they have to learn, and keeps trying and asking questions.”
‘I Never Thought I’d Experience Anything Like This’
If they come away from our 3D ThinkLink training with nothing else, we want the at-risk teens in our classes to feel better about themselves and know they can succeed, despite past failures.
At the end of last month’s Immersion Lab, cadets talked about their favorite projects from the week. Capital Guardian’s Ashley Walker held up an ornament she created with a small light glowing behind a 3D-printed panel that features Looney Toons character Marvin the Martian with hearts and a poem.
“Marvin looks mean, but he’s not,” told her fellow Lab students. “I tend to get to a place where I get so frustrated that I take out my frustrations on the people I love. … I can be mean sometimes, but this is a lot of love.”
Then she read her poem:
I loved you yesterday
I love you still
I always have
I always will
“I’m grateful that I chose to take the 3D class because back home I never had the chance to experience anything like this,” said Ashley. “I really appreciate it and I never thought I’d experience anything like this. I didn’t know it was possible.”
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