Useful free software for 3D Printing - Part 3 - Tinkercad

There are a number of excellent software tools for 3D Printing but for the occasional user, smaller business or school they can often be too expensive.

In my previous posts, I covered a File Management/Workflow software called GrabCAD Workbench, Medical Image preparation software called Invesalius, and now I want to address Tinkercad.

Many schools who want to introduce product design and or 3D Printing are challenged by a number of factors, the cost of CAD seats and/or the apparent complexity of traditional CAD environments. I am also a fan of using 3D across all subjects in the curriculum which means that you are often exposing teachers who have never designed to CAD.

I have played with a number of excellent tools in this space

• 3D Slash
• FreeCAD
• Sketchup

and many others, but of all of them, the one that I have stuck with is Tinkercad. Tinkercad was originally produced by a small independent company, and a few years ago they decided to change the direction of their business and Tinkercad was about to be closed down, it was bought by Autodesk.

Tinkercad is deceptively simple, in fact, when you first create your account it looks way too simple at this stage many potential users move on as they decide that it will not meet their needs, but behind that fun, childlike interface is very good CAD modelling software.

I firmly believe that Tinkercad works well in a school environment from K to 8 as it is

• easy to learn - within 5 minutes of starting you could have your first printable model
• intuitive
• great community with excellent tutorials
• has circuit design and validation options
• allows coding and the creation of custom shapes using Javascript

Tinkercad can be learnt by anyone and has scope beyond just CAD modelling. It also is a great learning environment allowing students to move on to more complex CAD environments at a later stage.