What is Tinkercad?
Autodesk’s Tinkercad is one of the most popular classroom tools for creating simple designs from scratch, quickly modifying existing designs. It’s a free online 3D design program that you can use in your web browser without downloading any software. Tinkercad is extremely intuitive and easy to use, and has built-in Lessons to help you learn the ropes, making it perfect for beginners both young and old.
Basic models such as name tags, furniture, houses, snowmen, vases, keychains, and cups are easy to create quickly with Tinkercad. Design by selecting, dragging, and placing basic shapes and then combining and manipulating them to create 3D models of whatever you like. Custom Shape Scripts add more flexible tools like text, shape generators, and parametrized forms. If you make your designs public then other people can open their own copies of your models and Tinker with them; likewise, you can Search through thousands of public models to find desings to Tinker with and modify.
Tinkercad excels at cutting things into parts, adding simple features, making holes, and combining, aligning, and arranging objects. It’s easy to bring existing designs into Tinkercad to make quick modifications or additions, so advanced designers can also benefit by including Tinkercad in their design toolbox. You can import 3D STL models into Tinkercad for modifying or incorporating into other models, or import 2D SVG images that can be used to make extruded patterns, lettering, and designs. When you’re done designing you can export to STL for 3D printing, or even directly to Thingiverse, Shapeways, or Minecraft.
Learning Tinkercad
- Beginner 3D Design With Tinkercad
Very first steps for the intuitive in-browser modeling tool Tinkercad - Designing a Penny Trap with Tinkercad
A detailed walkthrough of creating a Penny Trap using drag-and-drop shapes - 3D Modeling with Tinkercad: Basic Skills
A YouTube playlist by Climbing Tree - 2017 New Tinkercad Basic Tutorial
A YouTube playlist by Eunny - New TinkerCAD
A YouTube playlist by jumekubo4smps - Tinkercad Jumpstart on Thingiverse
Extensive resources and examples for using Tinkercad to create 3D models - Black Cats – With simple image-to-3D-design tutorial
Image → SVG → Tinkercad → STL
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Some content on this page was taken directly from Thingiverse Jumpstart and Shapeways Tutorial Tuesday, but that’s okay because I wrote those pages too 🙂