Meet the Crane student turning plastic filament into instruments, opportunity, and a little bit of Star Wars magic
Wearing his hallmark 3D-printed Star Wars helmet—a nod to his passion for SUNY Potsdam's Makerspace and his lifelong love of the franchise—Casey DeJesus-Webb '25 & '27 stands out from the crowd at commencement.
Photo by Jesstine Avadikian
Underneath the mask is a sharp-witted Crane student who landed on the President's List seven times on his way to graduating summa cum laude with his undergraduate degree in music education. During all of his time at SUNY Potsdam, he has been living at the intersection of two very different worlds: music and manufacturing.
Building a Second Home
Casey has spent years interweaving music education and technology, using his skills with 3D printing to support faculty on campus alongside his own work as a student teacher and musician. After graduating in 2025, he stayed on at SUNY Potsdam to pursue a graduate degree in music education—and to keep doing the work that's become central to who he is.
“Part of the reason that I’m still here at Crane, doing the master’s degree in music education, is so that I can work here in the Makerspace. This is my second home. I’ve been here for years at this point, building it up from almost nothing,” Casey said. “I love being here and doing this work. I’m making an entire training curriculum right now, because I want this space to continue growing, I want this place to thrive.”
When he’s not in class, studying, or student teaching, Casey can be found in the Makerspace, inside the Lougheed Center for Applied Learning, where he oversees hundreds of print jobs every semester. Using a process known as additive manufacturing, he builds layers upon layers of plastic into products that support academic projects across campus. During the Spring 2026 semester, he oversaw 830 print orders—a striking jump from the 80 jobs when he first started in the space back in 2021.
“That encompasses everything from a little fidget device for your hands, to full sets of conducting batons for Dr. Nils Klykken’s conducting classes,” Casey said. “The Makerspace is a community of people who just like making stuff because it makes them happy, because it makes their life easier. It’s open to everybody on campus.
Instruments for Everyone
That philosophy has taken Casey's work well beyond campus. When Dr. Tim Yip, an assistant professor and coordinator for the music business program, wanted to manufacture low-cost instruments for one of his classes, Casey helped build a collection of 20 ocarinas, 15 sets of maracas and 16 ukuleles for the Potsdam@RCF program.
“Casey has been a vital collaborator for my Music Through the Ages course at Riverview Correctional Facility,” Yip said. “He helped produce sets of 3D-printed instruments that allowed students to explore and learn music. One student said that playing a 3D-printed ocarina made him feel like a kid again. The engagement the students showed around the instruments reminded me how meaningful and restorative creative opportunities can be. Casey’s work preparing and providing these instruments helped make those moments possible.”
Accessibility drives much of what Casey does in the Makerspace—finding low-cost alternatives for students and faculty who might otherwise go without.
“A single ocarina made out of ceramic, which is easily breakable, is about $20 on Amazon. I can print one for about five cents of plastic. You can drop it; it isn’t going to break, at least if you don’t throw it off a roof,” he said.
The same logic applies closer to home. After a classmate developed an allergy to the brass mouthpiece on his tuba, Casey helped him manufacture his own.
“Instead of paying $400 for a titanium mouthpiece, he could print one himself and modify it to his liking for pennies on the dollar,” he said.
Casey later did the same for his own euphonium. He didn't have an allergy—just an eye for the savings. He debuted the printed mouthpiece at his senior recital, alongside another one of his creations: one of his now-famous Star Wars helmets.
“I played a Star Wars piece, in Star Wars armor, on Star Wars Day, May 4, 2025. It was just a blast,” he said.
From Stage to Classroom
For all his work with 3D printing and as a musician with campus ensembles like Concert Band and Wind Ensemble, Casey's central goal, and major, has always been focused on becoming a music teacher. He spent his first few years studying music theory and the nuances of teaching music to children—coursework that ranged from Principles of Music Education to Wind Practices—before arriving, by senior year, at his student teaching placements at Brinckerhoff Elementary, Gayhead Elementary and Highland High School.
“The most meaningful part was having my own kids. Theory is all well and good until you get in front of the classroom and start trying to practice it. It gets very chaotic, very quickly. A lot of your job ends up being classroom management, but then once you get past the management and you have a rapport with the students, then you can get to the actual teaching part,” he said.
Helping his students succeed has been the highlight of it all. He remembers one student, a percussionist in his band, who wanted to switch gears and learn tuba. With just seven weeks before their concert, Casey taught him everything he needed to know about the brand new brass instrument.
“He played tuba in the concert. He was ecstatic at the end, and I was so proud of him. After the concert, he gave me a hug and said, ‘Thank you so much,’” Casey recalled.
After four in-person teaching experiences during his undergraduate years—from five-minute lessons with preschoolers to the immersive senior-year placements—Casey has built the foundation for a career as a music teacher.
A Natural Fit
He did it all, too, without building a mountain of debt. Between a Pell Grant and the Excelsior Scholarship, Casey was able to cover a significant portion of his educational expenses.
“The Excelsior Scholarship covers thousands and thousands of dollars of tuition. My family is not too well off, so SUNY as a less expensive option was a natural choice. I was able to get through undergrad without going into private loans, thank the Lord, and thank SUNY Potsdam for being a state school.”
That affordability, paired with the tight-knit feel at Crane, made SUNY Potsdam a fit from his very first day on campus. Coming from a larger high school, Arlington in LaGrangeville, N.Y., Casey immediately took to the change in scale.
“I very much prefer a small community feel, where you actually know people. That’s what Crane is like. It’s a community of people like me on the music side, and then I come to the Makerspace, and I have the other half of me—catering to multiple parts of myself on one campus helps a lot.”
With one year remaining in his master's program, Casey is already juggling plenty: substitute teaching in the Potsdam Central School District, his managerial role at the Makerspace, and teaching SOAR classes on 3D printing. But for someone who has spent his time at SUNY Potsdam finding the overlap between music and making, it's less a balancing act than business as usual.
"The people I met here at SUNY Potsdam helped me actualize my credo: unabashedly me," Casey said. "I was able to embrace wildly different parts of myself all in one place thanks to the variety of experiences they encouraged me to dive into."
Article and photos by Jason Hunter