The roots of a community are the people within it. Each cycle, one student from Redwood’s community is chosen to be its root. Alex Kosorukov is a sophomore and 3D printing aficionado.
Hannah Herbst: I’ve heard about your 3D printing business, which I know isn’t operating at the moment, but tell me more about that.
Alex Kosorukov: I ran the business last summer and plan to continue it this coming summer. I started it after I really got into 3D printing last February. It was something that first started with my family, where they would want stuff 3D printed, and then my friends also wanted their things to be 3D printed. I started opening the business out to other people and that’s how it spread. People would reach out to me if they wanted something custom 3D printed, and I would print it for them and send it over.
HH: You mentioned your family. Did they introduce you to 3D printing?
AK: I think originally my interest started when I was in seventh or eighth grade. I’d see videos on YouTube of these cool time lapses. I think it really took off about a couple years later when I built my own 3D printer. And that got me into the intricacies of 3D printing, because I got familiar with it.
HH: How did you build the printer?
AK: Essentially, I guess you could call it complicated Legos. You have a kit, or you order individual parts, follow instructions, put it together, cross your fingers and hope that it works. When I built mine, it performed significantly better compared to the one that I had initially bought.
HH: Do you hope to keep this as a hobby or pursue it professionally in the future?
AK: I think for now, it’s staying as a hobby and slowly moving into a business. I have worked with certain companies and nonprofits. At the end of the summer of 2023, I worked with Camp Kesem, which is a nonprofit organization that works with kids who had parents who fought cancer. The way I got connected to it was through my older brother, who’s in college and a counselor there. And I, for some time, printed keychains for the camp kids there as sort of volunteer work.
HH: Have you been able to contribute any other way to the community with 3D printing?
AK: Yes, it wasn’t through my business, but, over the summer, I picked up a job at Tinker Tech, which was a robotics and engineering-focused job as a teaching position for younger kids around middle and late elementary school age. For a few days when we wouldn’t have planned activities through Tinker Tech, I would bring in my 3D printer and show them how it works. I taught them 3D modeling software so they could 3D print their own models, then I would 3D print it for them.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
