Tinkercad Adds Embedded Circuits, Lego Exports, and More via MAKE: Blog

Tinkercad is a great, free, 3D modeling tool that can be used to design 3D printable objects and more. -- Douglas

Tinkercad, the web-based CAD program, is a great gateway for new designers to learn the basics of computer-assisted design. Those basics get a little more powerful with the announcement of new features that allow users to do everything from integrating electronics to exporting to Lego.

The announcement, which happened today at Maker Faire Bay Area, specifically gives educators and casual users the ability to save their custom designs to their toolbar, allowing for intricate creations to be recalled instantly and used repeatedly between specific builds. It also adds two embeddable electronic circuits — an LED throwie option for light-up projects, and a vibro-bot function for jittering movement. This feature will place cavities for the components into your design; when you 3D print them (Tinkercad already has a simple export function for 3D printable files), the spaces are ready for you to add batteries, LEDs, or motors to make your designs come to life.

Read Tinkercad Adds Embedded Circuits, Lego Exports, and More via MAKE: Blog

Learn more about Tinkercad

An interesting link found among my daily reading

Comments

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW] Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Shared calendars are one part of an organized family

by Douglas E. Welch , techiq@welchwrite.com 206-338-5832 Reader/Listener Line As a parent with a school-age child, I often hear other parents bemoaning their disorganized existence. Along with the busy schedules of two working parents you might have art classes, karate classes, Little League, soccer and more. Add in more than one kid and organizing your life can quickly become a nightmare. This is exactly why one of my most important organizing devices is a shared calendar that reflects all the activities and events for everyone in the household...and I do mean everything. If someone -- is required to be somewhere -- at sometime, it goes into the calendar. If we are given a calendar that reflects all the events for a particular activity (say, Little League), all these events immediately go into the calendar, along with notations on whether we are providing the team snack, working in the snack bar, etc. Even events that occur anytime during the day, like family birthdays, and other rem...

Google Docs adds templates

I have started to move away from using Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc) in favor of online tools like Google Docs . Even as a computer consultant, I find that I use probably less than 10% of the features in any of these projects. One feature I really like in Google Docs is the easy, online file sharing that also allows you to edit simultaneously with someone else. Today, Google Docs added some templates including business cards, brochures and more. At the moment, it looks like they are rolling out this feature over time, so you might not yet see the templates on your account. When available, you will find the templates under the New... menu item. From Open Loops ... Today, Google quietly rolled out a new feature for their Google Docs Applications: Templates! It's so new that it isn't even listed on the new features page at this time. When one opens their Google Docs account and chooses to start a new document, a new "From Template..." command is pre...

TechnologyIQ

Search This Blog