b'Printing with PurposeColumbia High School students turn 3D printers into tools for goodBY ADRIANNA DONATJackson Teitelbaum, a senior at Columbia High School, is the founder of Print with Purpose. The group designs and 3D prints tac-tile educational tools for people who are blind.A die printed with holes allows visually impaired people to A ccompaniedbythesteadyI raised $5,000 to buy an OrCam device for aTogether,theybecamefeel the numbers.owned 3D printers. I just started asking around, humof3Dprinters,awoman who really wanted one, Teitelbaum says.he says. Before I knew it, we had 10 people in the handful of Columbia HighShe told me how it completely changed her dailygroup, all seniors with their own printers.Schoolstudentsarerun- life. It could read her text messages and tell herPrintwithPurpose, ningaquietoperationwho was in the room. Seeing how much technol- with a shared philosophy of using technology in with big impact from theirogy could help someone was what really openedthe service of others.homes.Theireffortsaremy eyes. The groups catalog of creations reads like a mix changing lives for visually impaired people theyveThat experience set Teitelbaums direction. Ibetween a science fair and an art studio:never met. didnt plan to work with the blind community,Topographical maps of the United States, al-Led by founder and senior Jackson Teitelbaum,he says, but helping someone through technol- lowing students to feel where mountains and Print with Purpose designs and 3D prints tactileogy made me realize how powerful that connec- rivers rise and fall.educational tools for people who are blind or vi- tion could be. 3D statues of Louis Braille, the inventor of sually impaired. The group prints everything fromA few years later, a friend gave Teitelbaum an oldthe braille system, helping learners visualize braille dice and topographical maps to statues and3D printer. I was instantly hooked, he says. Itsthe man behind the tactile code.science models. Their creations are shipped acrossamazing to make physical things from a digital file. Braille finger guides that make it easier to type the country through a partnership with See3D, anAt first, Teitelbaum printed for fungadgets,on a brailler machine.Ohio-based nonprofit that distributes 3D-printedtrinkets,thekindofexperimentalprojectsanyU.S. flags with raised stars and stripes.models to schools, facilities and events for the blind. teenage tech tinkerer might make. But when heAnd even whimsical items such as braille dice For Teitelbaum, this isnt just a hobby. Its thediscovered See3D, the same instinct to help thatand models of the Titanic for history lessons.evolution of a mitzvah project that sparked a life- guided his Bar Mitzvah project came roaring back. Each object takes hours to design and print, longpassionforusingtechnologytomaketheHis first assistive creation was a periodic tablebut Teitelbaum and his team say its worth it every world more accessible. labeled in braille, so blind students could exploretime they see a video from See3D showing one of Five years ago, Teitelbaum was a middle school- thelayoutofelementsthroughtouch.Itfelttheir models in use.er searching for a meaningful Bar Mitzvah project.amazing to know something I made could actu- At this years Ohio Regional Braille Challenge, He discovered OrCam, an Israeli startup that cre- ally help someone learn, Teitelbaum says. we saw a video of a child learning from an astro-ated MyEye, an AI-powered device that clips ontoHissingleprintercouldntkeepupwithre- naut and comet model we had printed, Teitel-eyeglassesandhelpspeoplewhoareblindreadquestsfromSee3D.So Teitelbaumreachedoutbaum says, smiling. Watching that really opened text, recognize faces and identify objects. to friends, many from CHSs robotics team, whomy eyes to our impact.30/ matters magazine / holiday 2025'