Hod Lipson recalls demonstrating the 3-D printer invented in his lab, the Fab@Home, during show-and-tell in his son's Cayuga Heights Elementary School classroom. Using the fabber, the students made a small space shuttle from two colors of Play-Doh.

"The kids went crazy when they saw it," said Lipson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "It was the first time they've seen anything being manufactured."

It's this excitement about science, engineering and math that Lipson hopes will be the fruits of a project, recently funded by the MacArthur Foundation, that will bring these cutting-edge, low-cost printers into public schools.

Cornell's Computational Synthesis Lab, which Lipson heads, has been awarded a share of $185,000 from the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition to bring the 3-D printers to public elementary schools. The grant, one of a handful selected from among hundreds of applicants worldwide, was jointly awarded to Glen Bull, professor of instructional technology at the Curry School of Education at University of Virginia, who will spearhead the effort to create curriculum and data collection around the printers for classrooms in Virginia.

3-D printing technology has been around since the 1980s, but commercial printers still cost tens of thousands and are limited to proprietary materials. Lipson's lab makes printers compatible with an endless array of materials -- from Play-Doh and cookie dough to polymers -- to allow the average person to print models or even electronics with the aid of computer software. The printers work with nozzles that scan a surface in patterns based on computer designs. After each scan, the nozzle moves up and repeats until it has built up a complete object.

The grant will allow the Fab@Home project team, headed by Ph.D. student Jeffrey Lipton, to design and build five more printers appropriate for use in K-6 classrooms. Their goal is not only to connect young children with the technology, but also for teachers to access the Cornell scientists' technical expertise to inform lessons in science and technology.

For the past several years, a sort of Fab@Home user community has been formed around the printer designs. Anyone can download the open-source plans for the printers at http://www.fabathome.org, and the latest version can be built with about $1,600 worth of off-the-shelf parts.

The next version, Lipson says, will likely cost less than $1,000 to make. He and his collaborators, including the Fab@Home student project team that focuses on usability and design, believe the 3-D printers will be like personal computers -- expensive and esoteric at first, but ultimately destined for every home. The same goes for schools, they say. Lipson hopes a successful pilot run in Virginia will lead to more printers in more schools, including in Ithaca.

"Ultimately what we really want is to have a digital fabrication lab in every classroom," Lipson said, "just like there is a computer lab in every school."