{"id":2043,"date":"2025-04-10T12:40:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T16:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2026-02-11T18:27:54","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:27:54","slug":"lift-program-at-the-makerspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/projects\/lift-program-at-the-makerspace\/","title":{"rendered":"LIFT Program at the Makerspace"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2045\" style=\"width: 381px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/IMG_4257-3-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2045\" class=\"wp-image-2045\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/IMG_4257-3-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Casen working with the Prusa XL 3D printer\" width=\"371\" height=\"491\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2045\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Casen working with the Prusa XL 3D printer<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.williams.edu\/PSCI\/detail\/?strm=1252&amp;cn=22&amp;crsid=019045\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Learning Interventions for Teens<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (LIFT) program is a mentorship-based program held at Williams every winter study. This program pairs Williams College students with teenagers involved with the Berkshire County juvenile justice system. It offers teenagers an opportunity for personal growth, skill-building, and creative exploration. Over the course of three weeks, students engage in hands-on projects centered around art, photography, 3D printing, and other disciplines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During our 2025 winter study, the Makerspace partnered with one of the mentor-mentee pairs, Sarah Sousa \u201928 and Casen, respectively. Casen was interested in 3D printing and was eager to learn more about how he could use it for his project. Casen was interested in printing two cars that he envisioned using a black filament. David Keiser-Clark, the Makerspace Program Manager, and I gave Sarah and Casen a tour of the Makerspace and shared an overview of all the resources and tools that were available to them. I then worked with Casen and showed him the entire procedure involved in 3D printing, starting from slicing the 3D models to loading the filament and eventually initiating the print. After our demonstration, Casen was ready to implement the entire 3D printing process by himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2056\" style=\"width: 285px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2056\" class=\"wp-image-2056\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-226x300.jpg\" alt=\"One of Casen's 3D printed model cars\" width=\"275\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-226x300.jpg 226w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-771x1024.jpg 771w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-768x1020.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-1157x1536.jpg 1157w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-1542x2048.jpg 1542w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/files\/2025\/04\/PLA-3D-Printed-Car-scaled.jpg 1928w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2056\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of Casen&#8217;s 3D printed model cars<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altogether, the printing process for both cars took two days to complete. Once the prints were finished, the task of removing the supports\u2014structures that help to stabilize the print during the process\u2014was still a challenge. Removing the supports is usually straightforward, but it was a tricky process for these cars, yet Casen carefully removed them without damaging the prints. He was very patient with it and developed his own innovative techniques to remove them.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During this time, Casen and Sarah also worked together on their final presentation\u2014which I had the chance to attend on the last day of Winter Study. It was exciting to see all of the interesting projects that students in the program had been working on. The projects covered a range of topics, including nail art, attorney mentorship, and music. It was also lovely to see mentors and mentees receive their certificates of completion. I felt genuinely inspired to see how Williams\u2019 resources helped Casen and other students explore and build upon their interests.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Learning Interventions for Teens (LIFT) program is a mentorship-based program held at Williams every winter study. This program pairs Williams College students with teenagers involved with the Berkshire County juvenile justice system. It offers teenagers an opportunity for personal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/projects\/lift-program-at-the-makerspace\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3047,"featured_media":2045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[15,74,69],"class_list":["post-2043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects","tag-3d-print","tag-lift","tag-makerspace"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2043"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2912,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2043\/revisions\/2912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/makerspace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}