Looking for help to teach teachers and students 3D modeling

[toniszym 0]

Hello I am about to start a big research project with middle school math teachers and have been struggling trying to learn a modeling software. I am currently trying Fusion360 but I think that is too intense and difficult for both teachers and students who will have about 2-3 days to learn the software. Can you please recommend something that will be easy for students and teachers to use and see results with fairly quickly? It doesn't have to be free just intuitive and able to print good 3D projects.

[gr5 2,184]

I recommend tinkercad. It's free, on the web (so mac or pc is fine and even an ipad), and designed to be as simple as possible yet still very useful for moderately serious part design.

You should also talk to some teachers here who have heavy experience with this sort of thing such as @Larum.

[rowiac 53]

I second the recommendation of Tinkercad. It's easy to get started on and is fairly well oriented toward 3D printing.

[geert_2 558]

I don't know Tinkercad, so I can't say anything about it.

If the purpose is for 3D-printing, I would suggest that you try DesignSpark Mechanical. This is a free but limited version of SpaceClaim. It is very easy to learn, and there do exist a lot of good tutorial videos. The basics can be learned in a few hours. Intermediate level stuff takes a few more days. It is distributed by the big RS-components electronics company. It does require registration, but if you want to do a whole classroom, maybe you could find a solution with RS to make that easier?

If the purpose is only modeling, but not 3D-printing, you could also try the older SketchUp versions, which were freeware. This has a similar same push-pull interface as DesignSpark Mechanical. But SketchUp does not generate good "solid" and "water tight" 3D-models, so it causes trouble when 3D-printing. Also easy to learn.

[amedee 349]

For math teachers I would recommend OpenSCAD!

[OneLooseCrank 0]

I recommend tinkercad.  It's free, on the web (so mac or pc is fine and even an ipad), and designed to be as simple as possible yet still very useful for moderately serious part design.

Thumbs up for this. I designed and printed off quite a complicated, 'organic' suspension linkage. It can be a challenge to set up something with very specific dimensions and I can't remember if the construction of your part uses associativity, but for 2-3 day courses it will be great.

Window's 3D builder has some useful functionality too.

[rebekah_harper 60]

hiya,

I might be a bit late with this question but who is your audience and what is the expected assumed knowledge with IT ability?

Rebekah Anderson

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I saw this at the Ultimaker Panel at the FatCat Lab:

Morphi

And this is the "SuperList" here on the website-quite thorough, although I can say that many of them are not that easy and some really tough with deep learning curves.