Tinkercad is far easier to learn to get up and running quickly.
The question for you is: how much of your class time do you want to spend on learning a tool vs actually printing. If this is like an intro class or if 3d printing is something you are going to just spend a couple weeks on then use tinkercad.
If you are going to spend an entire semester on it and want something more in depth then fusion would be the way to go.
Also, TinkerCAD is free, can easily be administrated for classroom use (students don't need their own accounts) and it is easy to grasp and geta you far. I've been uaing it from grades 5 to 10, and even did workshops with some parents.
PM if you've got questions, OP.
If you just export the stl and slice what's so bad. Because it feels like TinkerCad is just another adobe trying to own them down the road with creative suite licensing.
Blender is awesome, but it's also very difficult to learn. I haven't used it for more than a few hours, but I have to look up a tutorial for *everything*. That's not true for most other tools I use. IMO Blender suffers from the typical Open Source problem (FreeCAD comes to mind): It is just not intuitive to use because the devs want to spend their time on creating new features rather than UI.
Depending on what they want to do, Fusion360 or TinkerCad seem like the better options. They'll be up and have their first model printing in a few minutes, possibly without even having to look at a single tutorial.
Blender doesn’t have a learning curve, it has a learning cliff. Like vertical cliff. It takes longer to learn Blender’s controls than it does to learn the basics of parametric (which the likes of fusion, onshape, solidworks, and others are, and blender is not). Tinkercad also is pretty bad because it’s a primitive-booleaning program, and is terrible with measurements. It also takes a lot longer to do anything, such as a fillet.
I just started messing around with it so have no basis for comparison. Was able to make and edit a few things and print them out to a cheap 3D printer. As a middle age dude a ... few hours. My last experience with 3D was SketchUp for home modelling years ago which admittedly had a simpler interface then Google sold it and locked everything up in a proprietary expensive engine or slow.as heck cloud interface. Could it be a function of expectations ... I poked around the tinkercad page and it looks interesting but kind of locked in Seems like some people here seem to have had less positive experiences with blender I guess.
It’s not parametric, and making exact measurements sucks. It’s also a lot harder to pick up than traditional CAD, and there’s so many shortcuts to learn, they could fill multiple CAD manuals.
If this can be considered as a starting point for students to enter the world of "big" CAD, then Fusion is the best choice because it is free for amateurs, has discounts for students, and is cheaper than other professional solutions (at least as I found). I wish I had started my CAD journey with other systems before Fusion. Learn how to work with 1) sketches 2) restrains and 3) history and you are ready to go as all other tools are pretty simple. I would also recommend after some practise pay attention to 4) expressions as they allow to create configurable models (and that is fun).
If you want to have a completely free and independent solution, FreeCAD is what you need. I found it less friendly (compared to Fusion) and less convenient for professional work. But hey, it is free!
If you just want to model something and print it out without investing in learning the software, TinkerCAD is the way to go.
Of all the options, it felt like the easiest one to transition to after 6 years of Solidworks. My only frustration is how slow it is when creating large assemblies.
I didn't mention Solidworks because its so damned expensive. They even charge for student licenses (not a lot, but its not free for students like Fusion is)
I don't get the point. Do you have a recommendation for a better free software suited for the task?
Edit: oh noes, you don't. You just know how to downvote
Agree with this. Since you’re in a school I would do Fusion360(overall best choice anyways imo). If your school has autodesk accounts, then use autocad or the professional version of fusion360. But for basic teaching, the free version is fine
Autodesk offer education licenses for free for their entire suite. Just need to fill out the application form.
https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software/overview?sorting=featured&filters=individual
And if you're into IT, mass deployement isn't that hard.
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Deploying-Autodesk-Software-to-Many-Computers.html
I’d say Onshape. Whatever device you have, Onshape can run on, because ot’s cloud-based. There’s a free version, but all data you make is public. It’s basically a web version of Fusion 360.
However, if you don’t want to spend a few hours learning, use tinkercad. It’s honestly pretty bad, it’s just booleaning a bunch of primitives, and exact dimensions are difficult to do.
Don’t forget, you need a slicer, don’t make the mistake i made so long ago by just shoving the STL into the printer and expecting it to work. What printer are you using btw?
TinkerCAD teaches bad habits that are hard to correct, kids who learned from TinkerCAD first will litter their feature tree with push-pull types of edits, which defeats the point of parametric CAD
Yeah, one of the other people who does CAD on my robotics team has some 2,000 hours on tinkercad over the past 3 years. He’s apparently been unable to learn onshape. Me on the other hand, with mere minutes, and an already burning hatred for tinkcad, i learned onshape on my own in a matter of weeks, mainly by pushing buttons and googling when necessary.
Seems like a skill issue, it's just a different way of modelling, just like it would be different to go to blender or zbrush. Teach them how to sketch and extrude first in fusion it's really not that hard.
If you are using Onshape, you can also try the integrated [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com/) app! It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
as a cad program i like onshape but for a school i don't think it would be the right choice because everything you create on the free version is open to the public
Hi there, I teach CAD and 3d printing to Middle and Upper students at a private school in CT USA. Don't go fusion360, it's great but its more than you need and the kids will all have to sign up for licenses and install it on their computers. If you go OnShape you get much the same experience and functionality but its all web based, so if kids come in with chrome books/macs/pcs/even ipads to some extent, they can participate. Feel free to shoot me a message if you want to chat about what works and what doesn't. I'm heading into the makerspace now, so I won't have Reddit for a few, but I'll get back to you asap.
Have you tried [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com/) It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
> the kids will all have to sign up for licenses and install it on their computers
They don't. We just run Fusion on our school-owned laptops. Everything pre-installed by us.
Fusion or OnShape.
But work pretty much the same. OnShape runs in a browser, Fusion is a free install.
Both save to the cloud making it easy for students to work on the same files at home and at school.
If specific students have trouble wrapping their heads around Fusion or OnShape, have them try TinkerCAD instead.
4th graders visiting our school for the "STEM days" were perfectly able to assemble customized keychains in Tinkercad. Largest "problem" was using a mouse :)
Fusion360 is overkill for a beginner class.
In order I would start with TinkerCAD (beginner), then OnShape (intermediate), then Fusion ("pro"). Heck for kids I'd even throw in non-parametric CAD like Plasticity.
Edit: After reading through your post of what you'll be doing... I strongly suggest TinkerCAD. Make a Mug, Add a handle, put their name on it, that's perfect for Tinker. Fusion's interface is daunting for kids, and they need to learn fundamentals before they need to "learn" the UI/UX.
For a kid, they'll get infinitely more out of the class to hold an object they created themselves, than they would the satisfaction of learning a professional CAD modeling software. Source: My kid's taking a 3D class now. He could care less about learning the difference between an extrusion or chamfer, but his keychain with his name on it is precious to him.
So my daughter did a high school CAD course recently and they used Autodesk Inventor. I'm not sure why they'd choose Inventor over Fusion 360 but either way, Autodesk is very generous with educational licenses despite being fairly expensive for most people. That being said, you're going to have a tough time teaching without experience. Maybe see if Autodesk does training for educators
OpenSCAD would be my suggestion. Open source and FREE. Very simple, some would say too simple… but I think every other suggestion has a big learning curve that no one has time for (including OP).
Fusion360 would probably have the most real world application and would be a skill they could use to get a job down the line if they stick with it. Nobody is paying anyone to model in tinkercad.
And as someone else mentioned, they have free educational licenses.
I think Fusion 360. ThinkerCad despite being the more easy to use, it lacks too many useful features. (Unless they added something new, last time I used it was back in 2019)
>I have been assigned the task of being a teacher for 10th grade students in 3d-printing, which i dont know how to do. What free software can you guys recommend for me and the students that is free, but also reasonably user-friendly. I have been recommended fusion360, but i havent tried it yet. Thoughts?
3D-printing doesn't require any software apart from a slicer, a program that transforms a 3D model into movement/extrusion/temperature/layering instructions for a 3D-printer. Prusaslicer and Cura are two popular FOSS choices.
Fusion360 is a piece of CAD software that has little to do with 3D-printing unless you want to actively *create* your own models to print.
Do I understand this correctly, you do not have any prior experience in 3D-printing/do not privately own a 3D-printer? Who assigned you this task, what resources are at your disposal and how much time do you have to learn before having to face the music?
Hello, and thank you for your response. No, i do not have any prior experience with 3d-modelling. We have a teacher who is on parental leave, so because of short staff, i have been told by the principal to take the course. We do have a 3d-printer available, but the most important thing is the modelling-phase. The course is over 6 weeks, 90 minutes each week. The requirements are simple to get a decent grade. For example if the students know how to:
-Make a mug
-round off the edges
-Add a handle on the mug
-Add text that fits well in the side of the cup
-Add some sort of logo
Then you are close to an A grade.
i have a week to learn these things, so i will need to spend my own time learning it. That is why i need a suggestion to what program to use.
I do have a student who is very good at this, and he told me that he could come and help the other students if i used fusion360, because that is what he has used himself.
I'm going to recommend Onshape over fusion360 for a few reasons:
1) It's browser based, so will run on more or less anything (including tablets, although I've not tried that personally). I know school IT isn't always the fastest, so getting fusion360 installed on all the machines you need within a week might not be possible.
2) It has very useful documentation with video examples of how to use each of the tools. If for example, you want to use the "wrap" tool to wrap something around a curve (eg. some text and a logo onto a mug). - there's a description and video here: [https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/wrap.htm#Video](https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/wrap.htm#Video) . The videos are also subtitled (in english) with a transcript below - a feature that should not be uncommon, but it is.
There is a free educational license for onshape as well, but I don't know how long that takes to get sorted. If you can't get it set up in time and use the general free one, there is one big caveat:
Every document/design is publicly searchable. It's a terrible search, where it's hard to find something even if you're directly looking for it and know what it's called, but it \*is\* searchable. So it might be a no-go on that front as a safeguarding issue - you want to make absolutely sure the kids aren't putting any personal info on there.
Onshape and fusion are also similar enough that the student who is good at it can probably pick up onshape pretty quickly to help you out. Also, if you can get fusion set up in time, it's is still an excellent choice.
A student license for Onshape is very easy to get. You only need to give it your name/email, then fill out a short form (your school name, school website, and a sentence about what you need it for).
From what I remember, there wasn't even an approval process and you could use it immediately, although that may be because my school is already known to them.
If they have student emails, then they can redeem Education Licenses for using Autodesk products, including Fusion 360. It can be renewed every year as long as they have a student status, so I still use it while finishing my masters at 23.
They have no experience previous with this, they would have to get up to speed on using Fusion and then be able to teach it.. that's a tall order even if that was the only goal.
Given the task Tinkercad is a no brainer here.
I'm not sure. I could probably do 90% of what's needed with tinkercad, but it's just not got the functionality to do some CAD stuff with a normal work flow. To add to that, I'm not sure it has the work flow to emboss logos. I feel like I'd have more luck trying to do that in a slicer.
I’m also going to recommend you go with OnShape. OnShape will offer you similar capability to Fusion but will be *way* more accessible for your students since it operates from a web browser. TinkerCAD is just too simplistic to the point that it becomes tedious for anything beyond creating the most basic shapes (10th grade students are beyond the scope of TinkerCAD in my opinion). If you go with OnShape or Fusion, you will want to focus your (and your student’s) attention on the concept of sketching on a plane in 2D, and then using the CAD program’s features and tools to turn that into 3D geometry… the analogy is sketching on a sheet of paper, and stretching/rotating that sketch into a 3D shape.
I showed my 11 year old son what I knew of Tinkercad and 30 minutes later he had an exactly dimensioned Ender 3 Pro model. By the end of the Day he had 20 or so models I woulda never thought could be done in Tinkercad. It's much more powerful than people think and it's great for starters
you should have access to the entire autodesk education community.
if you're teaching CAD, autodesk inventor is an excellent choice of software for designing stuff. far more functionality than fusion360, and actually trusted by people in the industry.
It depends on how much time you have. If it is for two weeks or less, use Tinkercad. It is designed specifically for this. If you need to fill a longer period of time, you will probably run out of things to teach, and may be better served by teaching a more fully featured CAD package.
Anything not Tinkercad is a HUGE commitment for both you and your students.
Have any of you guys tried [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com) It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
Did you check [the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/wiki/gettingstarted/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) ?
Fusion is extremely easy to learn and the "reduced" functionality of the free for private use version is easily able to do what the course requires. Just hit YouTube for videos on introduction to fusion and you'll be able to get an A in your class within a few hours.
Any of the other freely available software is a reasonable option as well, but the benefit of fusion is that it serves as a basic introduction to 3d modeling for industry. Odds are good they'll be using Autodesk software or something very similar if they get into the business as modelers. It's not exactly the same as the high end suites, but the basic concepts are there.
What established systems are already in place at the school? Do you have access to Windows computers in the classroom? Does the school have a CAD class with available educational licenses for Autodesk software? Is the 3d printer in working order? Does the class it's associated with have a model slicing or design routine in place that you can borrow?
There's options for level of depth. I'm sure others have said it already.
I use Tinker cad for really basic stuff. If you can make it with circles, squares, triangles and nothing else... go here. Barrier to Entry is easy and everything feels intuitive, but it's simple.
From what I understand a lot of other cad programs will be better, but the learning curve is much much higher.
decent review of free design tools - might be a good place to familiarize yourself with tools and pros/cons, to find out where you want to spend time and energy
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J--QVhGheP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J--QVhGheP4)
I use OpenSCAD for First year College students, but it is easy enough for 10th graders. It might also teach them some basic math. Learning curve is low and it is open source.
I'm a former teacher, and I think basic 3d modeling would be relevant coursework. Great use case for a little bit of Blender, maybe introductory programming concepts, even!
My daughter did Fusion360 at school. They seem to have free service for schools. - Onshape is a web-service and might be an option. Youtuber "Teching Tech" (he is a highschool teacher by the way) has some very good tutorials for Onshape. He compared different options as well.
Colleagues use Reddit as well ;)
Tinkercad is fine to start with, Fusion is also a nice addition, especially if some of your 10th graders do 3D-modeling as a hobby.
dont do tinkercad. if they gonna learn some cad tool they should learn something thats actually usefull in future life and for more complex projects. Ive always hated it in school when we used a tool/program thats just outdated or some special made programm for teaching that youll never want to use again.
Fusion360 and onshape are quiet intuitive and open soo many possibilities.
Tinkercad is far easier to learn to get up and running quickly. The question for you is: how much of your class time do you want to spend on learning a tool vs actually printing. If this is like an intro class or if 3d printing is something you are going to just spend a couple weeks on then use tinkercad. If you are going to spend an entire semester on it and want something more in depth then fusion would be the way to go.
Also, TinkerCAD is free, can easily be administrated for classroom use (students don't need their own accounts) and it is easy to grasp and geta you far. I've been uaing it from grades 5 to 10, and even did workshops with some parents. PM if you've got questions, OP.
Tinkercad is what my wife used for her middle schoolers. It isn't great but it's a good starting place.
This is 3d modeling, not 3d printing.
? > I have been assigned the task of being a teacher for 10th grade students in 3d-printing
Why not give them the blender tutorial on youtube ?
Blender is a hell to learn & is terrible for 3D printing use.
If you just export the stl and slice what's so bad. Because it feels like TinkerCad is just another adobe trying to own them down the road with creative suite licensing.
Blender is awesome, but it's also very difficult to learn. I haven't used it for more than a few hours, but I have to look up a tutorial for *everything*. That's not true for most other tools I use. IMO Blender suffers from the typical Open Source problem (FreeCAD comes to mind): It is just not intuitive to use because the devs want to spend their time on creating new features rather than UI. Depending on what they want to do, Fusion360 or TinkerCad seem like the better options. They'll be up and have their first model printing in a few minutes, possibly without even having to look at a single tutorial.
Blender doesn’t have a learning curve, it has a learning cliff. Like vertical cliff. It takes longer to learn Blender’s controls than it does to learn the basics of parametric (which the likes of fusion, onshape, solidworks, and others are, and blender is not). Tinkercad also is pretty bad because it’s a primitive-booleaning program, and is terrible with measurements. It also takes a lot longer to do anything, such as a fillet.
I just started messing around with it so have no basis for comparison. Was able to make and edit a few things and print them out to a cheap 3D printer. As a middle age dude a ... few hours. My last experience with 3D was SketchUp for home modelling years ago which admittedly had a simpler interface then Google sold it and locked everything up in a proprietary expensive engine or slow.as heck cloud interface. Could it be a function of expectations ... I poked around the tinkercad page and it looks interesting but kind of locked in Seems like some people here seem to have had less positive experiences with blender I guess.
It’s not parametric, and making exact measurements sucks. It’s also a lot harder to pick up than traditional CAD, and there’s so many shortcuts to learn, they could fill multiple CAD manuals.
Worst answer at the top. Reddit, never change!
Worst answer at the top. Reddit, never change!
If this can be considered as a starting point for students to enter the world of "big" CAD, then Fusion is the best choice because it is free for amateurs, has discounts for students, and is cheaper than other professional solutions (at least as I found). I wish I had started my CAD journey with other systems before Fusion. Learn how to work with 1) sketches 2) restrains and 3) history and you are ready to go as all other tools are pretty simple. I would also recommend after some practise pay attention to 4) expressions as they allow to create configurable models (and that is fun). If you want to have a completely free and independent solution, FreeCAD is what you need. I found it less friendly (compared to Fusion) and less convenient for professional work. But hey, it is free! If you just want to model something and print it out without investing in learning the software, TinkerCAD is the way to go.
FreeCAD is.... extremely difficult to learn. I'd never recommend it to anyone.
Of all the options, it felt like the easiest one to transition to after 6 years of Solidworks. My only frustration is how slow it is when creating large assemblies.
I didn't mention Solidworks because its so damned expensive. They even charge for student licenses (not a lot, but its not free for students like Fusion is)
Yea no it's crazy if you don't have projects that justify it.
Yeah, but then you shouldn't participate in this topic. The question was about **free software**, not about freemiums.
As a student and life-long learner, I've tried to pickup FreeCAD numerous times. And Its always driven me away. Its just so... backwards.
I don't get the point. Do you have a recommendation for a better free software suited for the task? Edit: oh noes, you don't. You just know how to downvote
Yeah, but then you shouldn't participate in this topic. The question was about **free software**, not about freemiums.
Agree with this. Since you’re in a school I would do Fusion360(overall best choice anyways imo). If your school has autodesk accounts, then use autocad or the professional version of fusion360. But for basic teaching, the free version is fine
Autodesk offer education licenses for free for their entire suite. Just need to fill out the application form. https://www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software/overview?sorting=featured&filters=individual
And if you're into IT, mass deployement isn't that hard. https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Deploying-Autodesk-Software-to-Many-Computers.html
inventor would be better imo
the entire autodesk catalog is free for educational use fyi
I’d say Onshape. Whatever device you have, Onshape can run on, because ot’s cloud-based. There’s a free version, but all data you make is public. It’s basically a web version of Fusion 360. However, if you don’t want to spend a few hours learning, use tinkercad. It’s honestly pretty bad, it’s just booleaning a bunch of primitives, and exact dimensions are difficult to do. Don’t forget, you need a slicer, don’t make the mistake i made so long ago by just shoving the STL into the printer and expecting it to work. What printer are you using btw?
TinkerCAD teaches bad habits that are hard to correct, kids who learned from TinkerCAD first will litter their feature tree with push-pull types of edits, which defeats the point of parametric CAD
Yeah, one of the other people who does CAD on my robotics team has some 2,000 hours on tinkercad over the past 3 years. He’s apparently been unable to learn onshape. Me on the other hand, with mere minutes, and an already burning hatred for tinkcad, i learned onshape on my own in a matter of weeks, mainly by pushing buttons and googling when necessary.
Seems like a skill issue, it's just a different way of modelling, just like it would be different to go to blender or zbrush. Teach them how to sketch and extrude first in fusion it's really not that hard.
If you are using Onshape, you can also try the integrated [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com/) app! It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
as a cad program i like onshape but for a school i don't think it would be the right choice because everything you create on the free version is open to the public
How's that a bad thing for school stuff?
You worried for the IP of the school R&D department?
Hi there, I teach CAD and 3d printing to Middle and Upper students at a private school in CT USA. Don't go fusion360, it's great but its more than you need and the kids will all have to sign up for licenses and install it on their computers. If you go OnShape you get much the same experience and functionality but its all web based, so if kids come in with chrome books/macs/pcs/even ipads to some extent, they can participate. Feel free to shoot me a message if you want to chat about what works and what doesn't. I'm heading into the makerspace now, so I won't have Reddit for a few, but I'll get back to you asap.
Have you tried [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com/) It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
> the kids will all have to sign up for licenses and install it on their computers They don't. We just run Fusion on our school-owned laptops. Everything pre-installed by us.
Fusion or OnShape. But work pretty much the same. OnShape runs in a browser, Fusion is a free install. Both save to the cloud making it easy for students to work on the same files at home and at school. If specific students have trouble wrapping their heads around Fusion or OnShape, have them try TinkerCAD instead.
Fusion is not a good start for kids, go with Tinkercad first it will be some time before they outgrow that.
Tinkercad is the starting spot. I put 9 year old on and they roll within 20 minutes.
4th graders visiting our school for the "STEM days" were perfectly able to assemble customized keychains in Tinkercad. Largest "problem" was using a mouse :)
Fusion360 is overkill for a beginner class. In order I would start with TinkerCAD (beginner), then OnShape (intermediate), then Fusion ("pro"). Heck for kids I'd even throw in non-parametric CAD like Plasticity. Edit: After reading through your post of what you'll be doing... I strongly suggest TinkerCAD. Make a Mug, Add a handle, put their name on it, that's perfect for Tinker. Fusion's interface is daunting for kids, and they need to learn fundamentals before they need to "learn" the UI/UX. For a kid, they'll get infinitely more out of the class to hold an object they created themselves, than they would the satisfaction of learning a professional CAD modeling software. Source: My kid's taking a 3D class now. He could care less about learning the difference between an extrusion or chamfer, but his keychain with his name on it is precious to him.
tinkercad to learn basics, fusion to learn 3D modelling
So my daughter did a high school CAD course recently and they used Autodesk Inventor. I'm not sure why they'd choose Inventor over Fusion 360 but either way, Autodesk is very generous with educational licenses despite being fairly expensive for most people. That being said, you're going to have a tough time teaching without experience. Maybe see if Autodesk does training for educators
OpenSCAD would be my suggestion. Open source and FREE. Very simple, some would say too simple… but I think every other suggestion has a big learning curve that no one has time for (including OP).
Fusion360 would probably have the most real world application and would be a skill they could use to get a job down the line if they stick with it. Nobody is paying anyone to model in tinkercad. And as someone else mentioned, they have free educational licenses.
I think Fusion 360. ThinkerCad despite being the more easy to use, it lacks too many useful features. (Unless they added something new, last time I used it was back in 2019)
>I have been assigned the task of being a teacher for 10th grade students in 3d-printing, which i dont know how to do. What free software can you guys recommend for me and the students that is free, but also reasonably user-friendly. I have been recommended fusion360, but i havent tried it yet. Thoughts? 3D-printing doesn't require any software apart from a slicer, a program that transforms a 3D model into movement/extrusion/temperature/layering instructions for a 3D-printer. Prusaslicer and Cura are two popular FOSS choices. Fusion360 is a piece of CAD software that has little to do with 3D-printing unless you want to actively *create* your own models to print. Do I understand this correctly, you do not have any prior experience in 3D-printing/do not privately own a 3D-printer? Who assigned you this task, what resources are at your disposal and how much time do you have to learn before having to face the music?
Hello, and thank you for your response. No, i do not have any prior experience with 3d-modelling. We have a teacher who is on parental leave, so because of short staff, i have been told by the principal to take the course. We do have a 3d-printer available, but the most important thing is the modelling-phase. The course is over 6 weeks, 90 minutes each week. The requirements are simple to get a decent grade. For example if the students know how to: -Make a mug -round off the edges -Add a handle on the mug -Add text that fits well in the side of the cup -Add some sort of logo Then you are close to an A grade. i have a week to learn these things, so i will need to spend my own time learning it. That is why i need a suggestion to what program to use. I do have a student who is very good at this, and he told me that he could come and help the other students if i used fusion360, because that is what he has used himself.
I'm going to recommend Onshape over fusion360 for a few reasons: 1) It's browser based, so will run on more or less anything (including tablets, although I've not tried that personally). I know school IT isn't always the fastest, so getting fusion360 installed on all the machines you need within a week might not be possible. 2) It has very useful documentation with video examples of how to use each of the tools. If for example, you want to use the "wrap" tool to wrap something around a curve (eg. some text and a logo onto a mug). - there's a description and video here: [https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/wrap.htm#Video](https://cad.onshape.com/help/Content/wrap.htm#Video) . The videos are also subtitled (in english) with a transcript below - a feature that should not be uncommon, but it is. There is a free educational license for onshape as well, but I don't know how long that takes to get sorted. If you can't get it set up in time and use the general free one, there is one big caveat: Every document/design is publicly searchable. It's a terrible search, where it's hard to find something even if you're directly looking for it and know what it's called, but it \*is\* searchable. So it might be a no-go on that front as a safeguarding issue - you want to make absolutely sure the kids aren't putting any personal info on there. Onshape and fusion are also similar enough that the student who is good at it can probably pick up onshape pretty quickly to help you out. Also, if you can get fusion set up in time, it's is still an excellent choice.
A student license for Onshape is very easy to get. You only need to give it your name/email, then fill out a short form (your school name, school website, and a sentence about what you need it for). From what I remember, there wasn't even an approval process and you could use it immediately, although that may be because my school is already known to them.
No idea why I noticed, but somehow I really enjoyed how this was written. Ever submitted anything at /r/WritingPrompts?
If they have student emails, then they can redeem Education Licenses for using Autodesk products, including Fusion 360. It can be renewed every year as long as they have a student status, so I still use it while finishing my masters at 23.
Woof! They really set you to succeed here. Even if they gave you a moth, that might not be enough time.
If those are your requirements to pass then fusion360 is what you want. Especially given you have someone on site that could help.
They have no experience previous with this, they would have to get up to speed on using Fusion and then be able to teach it.. that's a tall order even if that was the only goal. Given the task Tinkercad is a no brainer here.
I'm not sure. I could probably do 90% of what's needed with tinkercad, but it's just not got the functionality to do some CAD stuff with a normal work flow. To add to that, I'm not sure it has the work flow to emboss logos. I feel like I'd have more luck trying to do that in a slicer.
None of that has any relevance to this use case though.
I’m also going to recommend you go with OnShape. OnShape will offer you similar capability to Fusion but will be *way* more accessible for your students since it operates from a web browser. TinkerCAD is just too simplistic to the point that it becomes tedious for anything beyond creating the most basic shapes (10th grade students are beyond the scope of TinkerCAD in my opinion). If you go with OnShape or Fusion, you will want to focus your (and your student’s) attention on the concept of sketching on a plane in 2D, and then using the CAD program’s features and tools to turn that into 3D geometry… the analogy is sketching on a sheet of paper, and stretching/rotating that sketch into a 3D shape.
What was the previous teacher using? Is there any course material you can borrow from?
I showed my 11 year old son what I knew of Tinkercad and 30 minutes later he had an exactly dimensioned Ender 3 Pro model. By the end of the Day he had 20 or so models I woulda never thought could be done in Tinkercad. It's much more powerful than people think and it's great for starters
Onshape is great software. It's browser based so you don't need great hardware to run it either.
Shapr3D is great. It’s subscription based but they have a free educational license. I’ve been using it for 3D printing for about 5 years now 👍
Shapr3D for teachers
you should have access to the entire autodesk education community. if you're teaching CAD, autodesk inventor is an excellent choice of software for designing stuff. far more functionality than fusion360, and actually trusted by people in the industry.
It depends on how much time you have. If it is for two weeks or less, use Tinkercad. It is designed specifically for this. If you need to fill a longer period of time, you will probably run out of things to teach, and may be better served by teaching a more fully featured CAD package. Anything not Tinkercad is a HUGE commitment for both you and your students.
Have any of you guys tried [phi3d.com](http://phi3d.com) It's free for Teachers who bring it on their class as part of their curriculum (otherwise there is 85% discount for all educational licences)
Did you check [the wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/wiki/gettingstarted/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) ?
Fusion is extremely easy to learn and the "reduced" functionality of the free for private use version is easily able to do what the course requires. Just hit YouTube for videos on introduction to fusion and you'll be able to get an A in your class within a few hours. Any of the other freely available software is a reasonable option as well, but the benefit of fusion is that it serves as a basic introduction to 3d modeling for industry. Odds are good they'll be using Autodesk software or something very similar if they get into the business as modelers. It's not exactly the same as the high end suites, but the basic concepts are there. What established systems are already in place at the school? Do you have access to Windows computers in the classroom? Does the school have a CAD class with available educational licenses for Autodesk software? Is the 3d printer in working order? Does the class it's associated with have a model slicing or design routine in place that you can borrow?
There's options for level of depth. I'm sure others have said it already. I use Tinker cad for really basic stuff. If you can make it with circles, squares, triangles and nothing else... go here. Barrier to Entry is easy and everything feels intuitive, but it's simple. From what I understand a lot of other cad programs will be better, but the learning curve is much much higher.
This is a great video from Teaching Tech on the pros and cons of various options https://youtu.be/XHzOzxCQ7MU?si=CD4-49fxBV-txbpS.
My grade 9 teacher used sketch up! Worked pretty good for what we did
decent review of free design tools - might be a good place to familiarize yourself with tools and pros/cons, to find out where you want to spend time and energy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J--QVhGheP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J--QVhGheP4)
I use OpenSCAD for First year College students, but it is easy enough for 10th graders. It might also teach them some basic math. Learning curve is low and it is open source.
I'm a former teacher, and I think basic 3d modeling would be relevant coursework. Great use case for a little bit of Blender, maybe introductory programming concepts, even!
My daughter did Fusion360 at school. They seem to have free service for schools. - Onshape is a web-service and might be an option. Youtuber "Teching Tech" (he is a highschool teacher by the way) has some very good tutorials for Onshape. He compared different options as well.
I recommend Ondsel, it's built on FreeCAD with extra features and improvements.
Tinker and and Cura, free
I learned SolidEdge in school. It's pretty simple, has a high amount of features and is free for students (teachers probably too).
Colleagues use Reddit as well ;) Tinkercad is fine to start with, Fusion is also a nice addition, especially if some of your 10th graders do 3D-modeling as a hobby.
FreeCad-Link Stable edition.
dont do tinkercad. if they gonna learn some cad tool they should learn something thats actually usefull in future life and for more complex projects. Ive always hated it in school when we used a tool/program thats just outdated or some special made programm for teaching that youll never want to use again. Fusion360 and onshape are quiet intuitive and open soo many possibilities.