Beyond Keyrings: How a 3rd Grade Class Used a 3-D Printer Project to Help African Village Children Learn

When Mrs. Mullins's third-grade STEAM class first gathered around their classroom's shiny new 3-D printer, most students imagined printing the usual suspects: colorful keyrings, miniature dinosaurs, and desk organizers. None of them could have predicted that by the end of the semester, their 3-D printer project would result in custom-designed solar flashlights destined for children thousands of miles away in rural Uganda.

A Service Project with Global Reach

The journey began with what seemed like a typical service learning assignment. Mrs. Mullins challenged her students to connect with children in another part of the world, learn about their daily lives, and identify a problem they might actually be able to solve. Through a missionary contact who had been working in Uganda for several years, the class was paired with students at a small village school outside Kampala.

"At first, the kids were most excited about the time difference," Mrs. Mullins recalls. "They couldn't believe that when they were eating breakfast, their new friends were already doing their evening chores."

Discovery Through Connection

The real learning began when the American students started asking questions. Through a series of video calls, letters, and photographs, they discovered a world that challenged every assumption they had about childhood.

Eight-year-old Emma was amazed to learn that her pen pal Fatima walked two hours each day to fetch water for her family. Third-grader Marcus couldn't understand why his friend Joseph couldn't just "go to the store" when his family ran out of food. But it was the discovery about homework that would ultimately inspire their solution.

During one video call, the Ugandan teacher mentioned that most students struggled to complete their assignments at home. The American children initially assumed this was because the work was too difficult. But as they dug deeper, they uncovered the real issue: without electricity, students literally couldn't see to read or write once the sun went down. And during daylight hours, children were expected to help with farming, cooking, cleaning, and caring for younger siblings.

"The kids here take for granted that they can flip a switch and have light whenever they need it," says Mrs. Mullins. "When they realized their friends were trying to do homework by candlelight—if they could afford candles—it really hit them."

From Problem to Solution

The students' first instinct was to suggest that the Ugandan school simply install electric lights. But as they researched the costs and infrastructure required, they began to understand the complexity of the challenges their friends faced. That's when nine-year-old Aiden had his breakthrough moment.

"What if we made them flashlights that didn't need batteries or electricity?" he suggested during a brainstorming session. "Like the ones that charge from the sun?"

The idea sparked immediate excitement, but also questions. Could third-graders actually design and build solar-powered devices? How would they get them to Uganda? Would they even work in a different climate?

Mrs. Mullins saw an opportunity to turn curiosity into learning. "Instead of giving them the answers, I helped them break down the challenge into smaller pieces they could tackle," she explains.

Learning Through Making a 3-D Printer Project ...and More

What followed was an intensive months-long project that transformed the classroom into a mini research and development lab. Students dove into learning about solar panels, LED lights, battery storage, and basic electrical circuits. They discovered concepts like voltage and resistance not through textbook diagrams, but through hands-on experimentation.

The 3-D printer became the heart of their solution. After researching existing solar flashlight designs and sketching dozens of prototypes, the students used computer-aided design software to create custom flashlight housings. The designs needed to be durable enough to survive shipping to Africa, simple enough for children to operate, and efficient enough to provide useful light from solar charging.

"We probably went through fifteen different prototypes," remembers student designer Zoe. "Some were too big, some broke when you dropped them, and one had a solar panel that was way too small."

Each iteration taught them something new. They learned about the properties of different plastics when early prototypes cracked. They discovered the importance of user testing when they realized their initial design was too heavy for small hands to hold comfortably for extended periods.

Beyond Technical Skills

While the students were mastering CAD software and circuit design, they were also developing less tangible but equally important skills. They learned to ask better questions during their video calls with Uganda, moving beyond "What's your favorite color?" to "What time do you usually try to do homework?" and "What happens when it's cloudy for several days?"

They discovered how to research topics they'd never heard of, from Uganda's average daily sunshine hours to the best materials for tropical climates. Most importantly, they learned to see problems through someone else's eyes.

"At first, they wanted to solve everything," Mrs. Mullins noted. "They made lists of all the challenges their friends faced and wanted to fix them all. Learning to focus on one specific problem they could actually address was probably the most valuable lesson of the whole project."

The Reality of Global Challenges

The project didn't shield students from difficult truths. As they learned more about their friends' lives, they encountered concepts like poverty, limited access to education, and systemic inequality. Some students initially felt overwhelmed by the scope of challenges their Ugandan peers faced daily.

Ten-year-old Sophia struggled with this reality. "It made me sad that they had so many hard things in their life, and we could only help with one small thing," she shared during a class reflection session.

Mrs. Mullins used these moments to help students understand that making a difference doesn't require solving every problem. "We talked about how big changes often come from lots of small solutions," she explains. "They learned that you can care about big problems while still focusing your energy on what you can actually do."

Impact and Reflection

After three months of design, testing, and refinement, the class successfully shipped twenty-five solar-powered flashlights to their partner school in Uganda. Each device was accompanied by a hand-drawn instruction card and a personal letter from its American creator.

The response from Uganda was overwhelming. Photos showed children using the flashlights to read textbooks, parents using them for evening cooking preparation, and teachers incorporating them into after-dark community meetings. The missionary contact reported that homework completion rates in the partner class had increased significantly.

But perhaps the most profound impact was on the American students themselves. The project fundamentally changed how they viewed their own lives and their relationship to the wider world.

"Before this, when my mom told me to turn off lights to save electricity, I thought she was just being annoying," admits student Jake. "Now I think about how my friends in Uganda would feel if they could just flip a switch whenever they wanted light."

The students also gained confidence in their ability to tackle complex challenges. They learned that age doesn't have to be a barrier to making meaningful contributions and that some of the world's biggest problems can be addressed through creative thinking and collaborative effort.

Lessons for Educators

Mrs. Mullins's approach offers a model for how STEAM education can extend beyond technical skills to build global awareness and empathy. The project succeeded because it connected abstract learning objectives to real human needs.

"The 3-D printer was just a tool," she reflects. "The real learning happened when students had to think critically about someone else's challenges and figure out how to help. The technology gave them a way to turn their empathy into action."

The project also demonstrated the importance of authentic partnerships in service learning. Rather than imposing solutions from afar, the students maintained ongoing communication with their Ugandan partners throughout the design process, incorporating feedback and ensuring their solution would actually meet expressed needs.

Looking Forward

At Christ Church Academy we're implementing this model in our STEAM curriculum. The success of the solar flashlight project has shown us how students can not only learn how to use technology, but - even more importantly - how to solve problems. This is an empowering approach, rather than an anxiety-inducing one.

In a world where anxiety and mental health are showing up increasingly, we want our students to remember that the Bible tells us not to be anxious. Our approach is to help our students focus on problems they can solve and things they can control, develop the skills that are needed for this, and to be grateful for the opportunities and privileges they have.

The original class of young innovators saw that making a difference doesn't require advanced degrees or enormous resources. Sometimes it just takes curiosity, creativity, and the willingness to see the world through someone else's eyes.

As student Emma reflected in her final project journal: "We learned that we can't fix everything that's unfair in the world, but we can fix some things. And maybe if lots of people fix some things, that adds up to fixing lots of things."

In a world where technology often seems to divide us, Mrs. Mullins' third-graders discovered how it can also connect us—one small solar-powered light at a time. We want to replicate that experience with more groups of students every year.