By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Thompson High School freshman Seth Folsom is no newbie to the world of printing three-dimensional objects.

At the age of 12, Folsom was playing with a Rubik’s Cube printed from a 3D printer, when he began wondering about the process it took to create it. After studying “lots of Youtube videos,” seeking advice from “some very nice people” on online forums and procuring funding from his father, Folsom built a 3D printer from scratch at his house.

Since then, he has been improving and tweaking his design. Now, his work will be felt across the world.

Through his involvement with Brian Copes’ engineering class at THS, Folsom, now 15 years old, recently finished building a larger, more complex 3D printer at a cost of between $400-$500.

“You can get a pre-made printer with features similar to this one for between $1,000 and $2,000,” Folsom said during a Nov. 4 interview in the school’s engineering lab. “Usually, those are more strict on what kind of filament you can use.”

Folsom’s most recent 3D printer was constructed using a skeletonized wood frame, many spare parts taken from deconstructed used printers and even some pieces printed from another 3D printer.

“It’s really interesting, because it’s like printing a printer with another printer,” Folsom said with a smile. “It took about two weeks to build this one. I’d say we spent about 15 to 20 hours on it.”

The printer functions nearly perfectly now. Folsom said it was lacking some calibration fine-tuning on Nov. 4, but said he expected to have it printing objects by the next day.

When finalized, the printer will heat filament – which looks similar to a spool of weed eater line – to about 500 degrees and print it on an X, Y and Z axis to create a three-dimensional shape. The printer reads an electronic file known as a G-code, which tells the device what shape to print.

“It’s like printing something out of a regular printer and layering it on top of each other,” Folsom said.

Since building the printer at THS, Folsom has taught his classmates how it’s done.

Now, he is preparing to travel to Honduras next summer through the Alabaster City School System’s sister school partnership to teach Hondurans to build a similar 3D printer.

“I hope we can get printers like this one in smaller communities like Honduras,” Folsom said, noting he would like to create a 3D printing business one day. “That will be great to teach kids who have never heard of 3D printing before.”