Options for making your own, original 3D designs
To get inspiration for what kind of objects you can design, check out Thingiverse.com.
Tinkercad
Web-browser based and relatively easy to use on your Chromebook. Let library staff know if you would like to borrow a mouse.
- Use your school Google account to signup for a Student account at Tinkercad.com
- Click on Resources/Learning Center.
- Under the Learn 3D Design section, click on View All. Click on each box and go through all the tutorials. Now you are ready to scroll further down the page to find an object you would like to design. Here is a direct link to a great intro. to Tinkercad with tutorials.
- You can also watch Youtube videos on how to create various object such as a Design a snowman Video or the Freaky Fast Tinkercad Keychains with Custom Fonts in Minutes video with your name on it.
- More Tinker Videos - Here are more videos, and you can do your own search for others.
- See below for some Tinkercad Tips.
Printing your Design:
After your design is complete and you want to 3D print it: Click on the file name in the upper left corner and change the file name to your first and last name and the name of the object you designed. Then click on Export/Everything in the design/.STL. The file is now in your Downloads folder.
Ask library staff to borrow the USB thumb drive with a micro SD card. Put your file on the card, then put the thumb drive in one of the library PC computers. Open up the Ultimaker Cura program, import your file, slice it, and click Save to Removeable. Eject the thumb drive and let library staff know you're ready to print!
Blender
PC based, steeper learning curve but much more powerful than Tinkercad. Blender is installed on PCs in the library.
Blender Intro Video
Series of videos on using Blender.
Fusion 360
Similar to Blender, but there is a version of Fusion 360 that is browser based and will work on Chromebooks. You can register for a free account on Fusion 360. As part of the registration process, you'll need to take a picture of your ID or transcript and upload it.
Ultimate challenge
Design a 3d selfie! Using technology such as photogrammetry or Lidar, we can use a phone to scan all sides of an object and then 3D print it. Our goal is to scan and print the heads of our teachers and fellow students, and then 3D print them. Lidar senor is included in all iPhone Pros, version 12 and up, and there are apps for any phone that use photogrammetry. You can do a Google search for 3D printing with Lidar and you'll find plenty of articles and videos. Here one example and here is another article.
Tinkercad Tips:
View: hold right click while moving around anywhere on screen to see various views (rotate/tilt), or click on the ViewCube in top left of screen. (If not using a mouse, you can press the right corner of the touchpad with your thumb). To pan (move the entire Workplane sideways or up/down) hold shift while holding down right click (or just hold down the mouse wheel).
Click the Home icon to return to standard view. Zoom in to see detail on the Workplane (large lines on grid are 1 centimeter apart and small lines are 1 millimeter.
Resizing objects: after clicking on the object you can resize one direction at once with the black scaling handles and 2 directions at once with the white ones. If you are zoomed too far out the handles will disappear. Proportional scaling allows you to adjust size without changing the shape of the object. To do this, hold the shift key down while scaling. You can also hold the alt key (alone or with shift) and the object will stay centered on the workplane.
Selecting/Moving objects: Hold shift and click on multiple objects to select. Selected objects will have thin blue outline. You can also do this with the lasso tool which is simply click and drag to select objects. To raise an object off the Workplane, click on the cone shaped handle above the object and drag it. You can move objects 1 mm with the keyboard arrow keys, or 1 CM by holding down shift with arrow. You can move on the Z axis by holding the ctrl. Key down. Grab the arrow handles to rotate an object, and to see small (1°) increment movements move the cursor outside the protractor. For big, 45° jumps, hold down the shift key. There should be 3 different sets of rotation arrows for the 3 different axis. If some are not visible, move the workplane around and zoom in and out. XYZ axis. Stretch out thumb and first 2 fingers. Middle finger is X (left to right). Y is middle finger (front to back) and thumb is Z, perpendicular to workplane (up and down).
Duplicate: This is used when you want to make a series of the same object that get progressively bigger (or smaller, or stay the same size). Helpful if you want a series of shapes symmetrically placed.
Hide: Use the Hide (and Show All when done hiding) functions if the Workplane is too crowded. You can hide multiple objects simultaneously too.
Hole: Drag a shape on top of another shape. When you click on the top one use the dialogue box to choose Hole. Shift click on the lower object and Group the 2 objects. Now there should be a hole and the upper object should disappear. To edit objects in a Group you can double click the object and make your changes, then it will automatically reGroup when you’re done (note that you can also make groups of groups, called nested groups). Color in groups: when you group objects of various colors, they will all become the same color. Go into the color palette and click on multicolor at the bottom of the menu to bring back your original colors.
