You have caused quite the Tinkercad buzz this week! =) Your name is all over the place! Thanks for all that you do!

When you hold another class, let us know and we can better prepare to participate. We’re also starting a series around educators who user Tinkercad as a teaching tool. We welcome anyone who’d like to share their story with us, their program and how 3D tech has influenced the classroom. Feel free to email me, or send folks to team@tinkercad.com.

Best,
Shino

Thanks for sharing!

This girl got introduced to Tinkercad at her arts class. She’s been continuing designing with her friends during past time, and I’m happy to say each week we see new designs by this group. It has been truly amazing to see this kid, in her early teens, evolve from designing this ( https://tinkercad.com/things/g8NIZXhHrq3 ) to this ( https://tinkercad.com/things/gCXCNhHq5vy ). Again all in just two months!

The lack of fear and willingness to explore and play results in quite remarkable creations. If our teenagers are already modeling Transformers, I can’t imagine what they’ll be designing in their twenties.

Here’s their teacher James Dec talking about design education and using tools like Tinkercad at the TEDxNYED last weekend. His talk is on the first video at the 1h 1min marker: http://new.livestream.com/tedx/TEDxNYED/videos/598113

I too was a tinkerer as a kid. Took tons of things apart for fun. Have gotten away from it, sadly, as an adult. Still enjoy working with my hands! In fact I have an IBM Thinkpad torn apart in my basement workshop right now for a CPU fan replacement. So I guess I haven’t gotten COMPLETELY away from it.

I love Tinkercad because it’s so kid-friendly. I teach youngsters (K-4) and I constantly encourage them to find their passion. I firmly believe some of my students will choose a technologically-oriented vocation in life based on their experience in my classroom. I want to be the person who someone looks back on and says, “I’m doing X today because I was inspired by Mr. Jarrett when I was in 4th grade Computer Lab” or something like that. So, thanks for making Tinkercad awesome!

Now to start thinking about lesson plans…

Best, kj

Taking things apart is a big tool for learning. Things become demystified when you can peek inside them. Even if you couldn’t create that, you grasp what the concept of creating would be.

Another biggie is copying. When we copy, we come close to the issue, learn from it and start to see the context. It’s been said that we can start create unique work only after we’ve copied enough.

Copying and disassembling designs is BIG part of Tinkercad. After logging in, you’re able to take any design you see on the site and work on it. Many times this means braking them apart: peeking inside and learning how the design was made. Sometimes designs are continued. And sometimes completely transformed.

I believe this open design culture, with its copying and collaboration, has created the amazing learning curve we’re seeing in the Tinkercad community. We’ve seen kids grow from drawing a simple box character to modeling near perfect Transformers robots –in two months! I can’t wait to see what they’re pulling by the end of this year.

So go hit that “Tinker this” button and disassemble your watch. Spare parts are allowed ;)

Am curious about the format of your classes- I teach K-6 also– how many minutes do you teach per class? I have 30-35 minute classes myself. You often mention warming up with Typing Pal, then teaching lessons etc. Thats why I was curious :)