Pen's Adventures in Tinkercad

Sometimes I get some crazy ideas.  One of my more recent crazy ideas was to buy (without any experience in computer graphics whatsoever) a 3d printer.

3d Touch shown here

Needless to say, this was incredibly silly, and my better judgement reined me in before I could blow 1-4 thousand dollars on something I'd have no idea how to use.  No, I told myself...no, you need to actually see if you have any aptitude for 3d sculpting before you buy anything remotely resembling a 3d printing device.

This led me to do some research on amateur approaches to 3d printing, and after reading a Popular Mechanics article on the subject, I decided to try my hand at Tinkercad.

For those new to the whole world of 3d sculpting, Tinkercad is like a poor man's Autocad.  A really poor man's Autocad.  For a total beginner like me, though, this was perfect.  I could see if I was actually any good at this sculpting stuff before going out to buy a multi-thousand-dollar toy.  I mean investment.  Yeah, we'll go with investment.

Much to my surprise, I don't actually suck at Tinkercad.  The gist of the program (an online interface, by the way - no install needed) is that you piece shapes together to make the forms you want.  You can "sculpt" shapes by using the negative space function (turning a shape into a "Hole"), ending up with some impressive specimens like the ones you see below.

The three things on the left are 30mm Sewer Grates, the thing in the middle is a 30mm lamp-post, and the stubby guy on the right is a Titan Container.  Now, keep in mind that I designed these things within a week of starting out with Tinkercad.  It comes with all kinds of tutorial activities (from making a ring with a heart on it to making a bat-shaped ornament), which really slide you into the techniques you might be using in the future.

Now, I'm not trying to say that you should use Tinkercad to replace the amazing stuff you'd be picking up from professional sculptors.  I'm saying that sometimes you might want nicer doors, some 3d windows with ledges, some really custom-made bases...and that's where 3d sculpting/printing is great.  It really doesn't take much skill to throw together the sort of stuff you see above, and you can only get better if you're willing to put in some time to learn.

Another really awesome thing about Tinkercad is that you can share designs easily, like this.  So go out there, throw some stuff together, and hunt down your closest 3d printer (check out public libraries!) to get some custom stuff on the tabletop!