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CAD is hard! I think about this a lot as I'm doing a makerspace at an elementary school and adults think it needs a 3D printer, but what are kids going to print

CAD is hard! I think about this a lot as I'm doing a makerspace at an elementary school and adults think it needs a 3D printer, but what are kids going to print on it? I think for me, the prerequisites for mastering CAD were 1) the practice I got visualizing 3D shapes so I could translate them into unambiguous mechanical drawings on paper (I swear, I'm not that old but my college was behind and we were the last class to actually do mechanical drawings with a pencil), and 2) having a procedural thought process from coding so that I could sequence the CAD operations to get where I want.

RRWagner 3y ago
Try Blockscad3d.com It's a block language where you program the object rather than manipulate shapes. It works well for my brain. Ymmv
- pineaux 3y ago
  Grasshopper for rhino is awesome too. It's actually really relevant for this topic. It's the only syste I know that integrates so well into a precise cad design system and also allows you to do complex stuff easily. I love it. Drawing a stellarator precisely is probably not that hard on it... Will see if I can throw something out quickly today.
eternityforest 3y ago
For me CAD is pretty much the opposite, I rely heavily on the apps, I spent about a week trying to learn to draw before deciding I didn't really want to spend months or years on it. I'm not a mechanical engineer, I mostly only do incidental CAD and hobby level work, so it's not really essential to have the deep understanding of space that real MEs need. I often don't know what sequence of operations I'll need until I actually open the app. Generally it's more of an "Oh I need a mounting hole, lets look around on the screen and see where one could go" thing, a lot of the thinking is in the app rather than in the mind. Of course you can't make nicely parametric things without a lot more thought so I will often wind up having to redo things that aren't one offs...

RRWagner 3y ago

Try Blockscad3d.com It's a block language where you program the object rather than manipulate shapes. It works well for my brain. Ymmv

pineaux 3y ago
Grasshopper for rhino is awesome too. It's actually really relevant for this topic. It's the only syste I know that integrates so well into a precise cad design system and also allows you to do complex stuff easily. I love it. Drawing a stellarator precisely is probably not that hard on it... Will see if I can throw something out quickly today.

eternityforest 3y ago

For me CAD is pretty much the opposite, I rely heavily on the apps, I spent about a week trying to learn to draw before deciding I didn't really want to spend months or years on it. I'm not a mechanical engineer, I mostly only do incidental CAD and hobby level work, so it's not really essential to have the deep understanding of space that real MEs need. I often don't know what sequence of operations I'll need until I actually open the app. Generally it's more of an "Oh I need a mounting hole, lets look around on the screen and see where one could go" thing, a lot of the thinking is in the app rather than in the mind. Of course you can't make nicely parametric things without a lot more thought so I will often wind up having to redo things that aren't one offs...