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Easy Entry to the Wonders of Coding in 3D Design

Hands-on with Tinkercad’s Codeblocks

Rob Morrill

@morrill_rob

Bourn Idea Lab Director

Castilleja School

A link to this presentation will be shared at the end. 1:15-2:35

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Outline:

Examples of code you can touch

Comparison of coded vs. standard

Walk through 3-4 designs

You:

Medium to advanced Tinkercad?

Used Codeblocks before?

Medium to advanced with coding?

Community, LS, MS, HS

Me: Literature, 1-8th, 6-12th maker

A link to this presentation will be shared at the end.

Make an account at

tinkercad.com

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Code you can touch!

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Structure Scanner, Codeblocks, standard Tinkercad combined

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Export your Codeblocks design as a “Part,” then work with it in standard Tinkercad.

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Shirley Chisholm, 1924-2005

First black woman elected to congress

Nina Simone, 1933-2003

Jazz artist, songwriter, activist

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Nina Simone

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3D printed lithophanes of women during Black History Month

Josh Aijima, Zero Things

These designs are on Thingiverse, directions for making them at end

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Export Codeblocks desings as SVGs

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Generated plans for a laser cut box with https://en.makercase.com/#/, exported them as a SVG, imported the SVG into Tinkercad, exported a Codeblcoks design as a Part, used that as a hole back in standard Tinkercad.

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Why bother using coding?

  • Easy to iterate, experiment
  • Loops and variables become meaningful because they produce physical items
  • Students practice thinking of parts they create interacting in a system, in 3 dimensions--spatial reasoning
  • Dale’s talk: learning to use various tools shapes our brains. London Taxi drivers, neuroplasticity

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When not to use Codeblocks

Standard Tinkercad would be the tool to use for a project like this, not Codeblocks

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Standard Tinkercad would be the tool to use for a project like this button, not Codeblocks

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Coding buildings for a city

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Coded bag tag swag. Added rectangles to keep the middles of letters from falling out.

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Main difference from last design is that the number of sides for each yellow and red petal increased.

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Main difference from last design is the number of loops.

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Only difference from last slide is that the Move Y numbers have both increased.

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Only # of rings changed from previous design

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Only the scale X field is changed from previous design

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Commenting code allows students to reflect on their coding in a metacognitive way, and it lets them demonstrate their understanding to others.

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A look at

the Codeblocks environment

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Resources:

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These two torus rings are identical except the orange has 16 steps vs 6 for the green. 6 may 3D print more reliably because of flat base.

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