Stratasys education director traces 20 years in additive manufacturing

Why Roitenberg’s perspective matters

Jesse Roitenberg’s career makes a strong case for learning 3D printing by doing, not just watching. As Stratasys’ education director, he brings roughly two decades in additive manufacturing and a background as a math and science teacher, which gives his view a rare mix of classroom instinct and industry memory.

That combination matters because the real breakthrough in 3D printing education is not the printer itself. It is the workflow around it: design, slicing, material choice, part failure, revision, and repeatability. Roitenberg has spent enough time in both teaching and manufacturing to know that students, club members, and first-time users need a process they can understand and reuse, not a glossy demo that only works once.

What the education side of additive is teaching the rest of the maker world

The larger message from the conversation is that education is no longer a side project in 3D printing. Schools are using additive tools to teach design thinking and production skills, and that shift has a direct payoff for anyone running a makerspace, a robotics club, or a printer at home. When people learn the basics early, they come back later with better habits: they understand tolerances, they expect iteration, and they know that a first attempt rarely tells the whole story.

Stratasys says its education offerings are used by more than 1,800 schools worldwide and are trusted by institutions including MIT and Stanford. That scale helps explain why school-side 3D printing keeps shaping the broader market. It is not just about classroom novelty anymore; it is about building fluency with tools that show up later in engineering labs, small businesses, and serious hobby setups.

A practical teaching playbook for kids, clubs, and first-time users

If you want someone to get comfortable with a printer quickly, start with a project that has a visible payoff. Pick a part that solves a real problem, even if it is simple, because the strongest lesson comes from seeing how design choices change the result. A keychain, a cable clip, a small bracket, or a test coupon teaches more than a vague tutorial ever will.

• Start with one object and one goal. Keep the first print small enough that failure is cheap and success is fast.

• Show the slicer, not just the printer. New users learn faster when they see how layer height, infill, supports, and orientation turn a model into a physical part.

• Make failure part of the lesson. A warped corner or weak bridge is useful if you turn it into a quick redesign instead of treating it like a dead end.

• Compare versions side by side. Two nearly identical prints, one revised and one not, make the effect of iteration obvious.

• Tie every print back to use. If the part is meant to hold, fit, move, or connect, test that outcome directly instead of judging it only by appearance.

That approach works especially well with kids because it keeps the experience concrete. It also works in clubs and among friends because it reduces the pressure to get everything right on the first try. Once the printer becomes a tool for testing ideas, not just producing objects, people learn faster and stay engaged longer.

Roitenberg’s background shows why pedagogy matters

Roitenberg is not just an industry veteran talking about education from a distance. Stratasys describes him as a former math and science teacher, and additional speaker material says he spent time teaching middle school math. One Stratasys bio says he has been in additive manufacturing for more than 17 years and has managed the educational program for more than 10 years, while another speaker profile puts his time in the AM business at 19 years.

That history helps explain why his perspective lands with educators and makers alike. Someone who has taught middle school knows that a printer alone does not create learning. The lesson only sticks when the activity is structured, the feedback is immediate, and the student can see how one change affects the outcome.

The numbers behind school adoption tell the bigger story

Stratasys has been building its education push for years. In September 2010, the company announced its seventh annual Extreme Redesign challenge, open to students worldwide. That kind of long-running competition shows how deeply student design has been woven into the company’s education strategy, and it also reflects a broader trend across 3D printing: the technology has become a pipeline for skills, not just a hobbyist novelty.

The practical value shows up in school projects that behave more like real-world manufacturing. A Stratasys case study at Lake Zurich High School reported a part cost dropping from about $200 to roughly $50, lead time falling from seven days to one day, and weight dropping from 16 ounces to 6 ounces. Those are the kinds of changes that make 3D printing hard to ignore in a classroom, because they improve both the economics and the learning experience.

The same logic is now showing up in credentials. Stratasys and NOCTI have partnered on an additive manufacturing certification program that focuses on materials, design and fabrication, software processing, communication, and post-processing. NOCTI said the certification was in pilot phase in 2022, which signals a meaningful shift: education is moving from one-off maker activities toward recognized technical skill development.

Why this matters beyond schools

The classroom and the makerspace keep feeding each other. As more students encounter printers, slicing software, design constraints, and post-processing earlier, they become more capable users later on, whether they are working on personal projects or building toward careers in engineering and advanced manufacturing. That is one reason Stratasys now frames its education solutions in workforce-readiness terms.

The wider education climate supports the same direction. Teacher-facing science and STEM resources from groups such as NSTA, alongside education coverage from outlets like Education Week, have kept makerspaces and hands-on engineering in the spotlight. The common thread is clear: 3D printing is increasingly treated as a way to teach problem solving, not as a novelty perched on the edge of the classroom.

For hobbyists, that is the most useful takeaway from Roitenberg’s story. The people who get the most out of 3D printing are the ones who treat every print as a small lesson in process. Learn the workflow, measure the result, revise the part, and repeat. That is how a printer turns into a skill-building tool, and it is why education remains one of additive manufacturing’s strongest engines.