Where Our CADventures Begin!
Hello Eddy-Folks!
Hope you are doing well. Can you believe it? We're already knee-deep in the semester with midterms breathing down our necks! The workload is no joke, and it feels like we're grinding away day and night. But hey, we got this! We’re hoping that our newsletters are providing a bit of relief from the daily grind and giving y'all a breather from the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day. So keep on reading, and let us know what you think!
In this newsletter, we’ll be talking about how we can use Tinkercad to create engaging classrooms with more meaningful learning experiences
Getting artsy with Tinkercad
Tinkercad is an excellent tool for creating 3D art. You can design your own sculptures, vases, and other decorative items. You can also design jewelry or accessories that you can wear. The next steps could be using 3D printing to make your own products. The possibilities are endless!?
Rita Foretich, a 3rd grade art teacher from Clarke County, worked in collaboration with a media specialist, art teacher, student teacher, and tech integrator to get her students to design kinetic sculptures.?
She says, “We did not tell students what they had to create.?The only guideline was that students work together to create something for their larger kinetic sculpture.?Every group created something totally different from a block filled with words to a barn to a ship.”
Plenty of classroom teachers who use Tinkercad publish screencasts for their students online. For example, this video is a great tutorial made by an art teacher that illustrates how he guides students through the process of making a realistic-looking Japanese mythical beast by fusing together pre-existing models from Thingiverse in Tinkercad.??
It’s magic, when STEM and Tinkercad come together
Tinkercad can help you create models of scientific concepts, such as the solar system, molecules, or human body parts. You can also design prototypes of inventions or machines.?
Using Tinkercad you can motivate students to create their own simple machines. After learning how to use Tinkercad by exploring and watching these video tutorials, they can create each type of simple machine by choosing 3D shapes like a cube, prism and/or cylinder to create a lever, wedge, pulley or wheel and axle.
Matthew, popularly known as StumpChukman, previously a STEAM integrator with a private K-8 school, says, "I enjoy looking at scaled models of the solar system. I've seen many cool examples of the solar system created with Tinkercad's 3D editor, and it got me wondering how accurately I could scale down the whole solar system."?
Read more about how he scaled down the solar system to his laptop.
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Tinkercad: Unleashing Creativity in Engineering and Math Education
Tinkercad is an excellent tool for designing and testing prototypes of engineering projects. With Tinkercad, you can create geometric shapes, graphs, and even design interactive puzzles and games that challenge your math skills. Take part in this hands-on project where you'll design a special tool for bakers to measure ingredients accurately.?
Get creative, convert measurements for different shapes, adjust dimensions effortlessly, and prototype your designs using Tinkercad. If you have access to a 3D printer, you can even bring your creation into the physical world.
Finally, put your device to the test to ensure it works flawlessly for precise baking measurements. Dive into this fun-filled project and unleash your math and engineering talents!
Exploring the Impact: Research on Tinkercad in the Classroom
If you are wondering about the existence of research that validates the application of Tinkercad in educational settings. Fortunately, there are studies available on this topic.
A study (2019-20) was conducted by Selami Eryilmaz and Gülhan?m Deniz of Gazi University on 583 students grades 5-8 studying in Turkey to determine the effect of Tinkercad on students' computational thinking skills and perceptions. The findings state that “When looking at students' perceptions of Tinkercad, it was determined that they were highly motivated for interest and appreciation and found Tinkercad to be generally useful and easy to use according to research findings.”
Another study conducted by Enjang Akhmad Juanda from Indonesia states how the teachers were forced to start using Tinkercad during the lockdown to teach electronics and microprocessors based on the students’ competency to use the software.?
They state that ‘... most of the students' response when using Tinkercad gave positive responses, namely that students felt enthusiastic, interested and motivated by Tinkercad learning media’.
So, what are you waiting for? Start using Tinkercad for your creative design projects in class! Remember, the possibilities are endless, and you never know where your imagination can take you.
Eddy’s using Tinkercad?
Eddy’s content design team has used this free, online 3D design and modeling tool to unleash your students’ creativity in the classroom. This fun and engaging lesson package can help leverage a deeper understanding of the applications of renewable energy. Want to see how we’ve used Tinkercad to promote climate education and a mindset towards sustainability? Check out our lesson plan here.
Additional tools:?
Read these resources to promote design thinking in your classroom, try the LAUNCH Cycle and Innovators Compass. LAUNCH Cycle, as CAPCOM Conrad mentions in her blog, is an acronym wherein each letter represents a phase, so it's easier to remember. The last phase, LAUNCH to an Audience, is a great way to incorporate a speaking and listening component for presentations. It is detailed in the book, Launch: Using the Design Thinking Process to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student by: AJ Juliani & John Spencer.?