 Surrounded by the buzz of industrial 3D printers, a group of high school students and educators are spending two weeks with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, learning about additive manufacturing and computer-aided design concepts. As part of a federal program from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Joint Science and Technology Institute is a fully-funded residential science, technology, engineering and mathematics program for high school students, middle school students and teachers from the United States and Department of Defense schools around the world. We're involved in a program with JSTI to do some research or learn some things so that we can take it back to our schools and share with our students what's happening out in the real world. These high school students and teachers are refining their projects on computer-aided design or CAD software and sending the finished concepts to the 3D printers. We're teaching them about 3D printing and how to run a machine, how to use CAD software and that's usually the hardest thing for students to pick up. Army researchers use additive manufacturing to discover new possibilities in materials science with an eye on innovation and technology solutions for future soldiers. ARL seems to be one of the best places I've ever been to as in the lab because there are so many experts here. The kind of additive manufacturing this group use during their program is a process of adding materials layer by layer through an extruder. These printers are not without challenges, they said. Like right now there's still a lot of limitations, like for example some of the printers are not printing the resolution we want or they're messing up in the middle of the job so I think that those things will improve and then it'll be easier to print faster to print and more people will be able to print. With advances in technology, additive manufacturing may provide a new way to make complex parts that couldn't be produced any other way. The potential in 3D printing is really endless, I mean there's so many things that can be done with it and there's so many more materials that people are working on. The students said they're optimistic about the pace of innovation. Really everything around us is based on STEM. The world today and the world tomorrow it's going to be based around technology. They pick up technology even faster than I do so it's funny teaching them and they'll I'll be like oh I'm not quite sure how to do that and then two minutes later they'll have it figured out. The Joint Science and Technology Institute offers a wide variety of research projects across many scientific disciplines. I definitely would recommend getting involved in the program just because you you don't get to pick which project you work on and so it brought like I didn't get to pick this project so it broadens your horizons and introduces you to something you might not have been interested in. For ARL TV, I'm David McNally.