Thurs Nov 2 – Finish Presentations, Start OpenSCAD

Today you’ll be finishing your Open Project presentations. If you have anything you need to fix in your blog post, today is the day to get that done.

After the presentations, we’ll talk a little bit about OpenSCAD to get ready for a short project we’ll be starting next week. OpenSCAD is a code-based 3D modeling program that is simple to use, even if you’ve never written a line of code before in your life. And it’s made specifically to produce and export STL files that can be 3D printed!

Here is the code we wrote together in class:

// goal: use a FOR LOOP to do the following:
// make copies of a rectangular box
// each on top of the other with gaps inbetween

///////////////////////////////////////////////
// parameters

length = 18;
width = 28;
height = 8;

gap = 10;

///////////////////////////////////////////////
// renders

for (i = [0:29]) { 
 // general box
 translate([0,0,i*(height+gap)])
 cube([length,width,height],true);
}

Homework: Download OpenSCAD, watch a particular video about it, and make something. See the Assignments page for details.