A project that Freshmen complete every year in their Conceptual Physics course is designing and creating cars that are raced down a ramp and measured for speed and distance travelled. Students design their cars completely using Tinkercad to create parts to be printed on the 3D printer.
The project started with an introduction to professional car design based around this video from BMW. We talked through the three main steps of: drawing and sketching design ideas; using clay to create a 3D model; and then manufacture. We also spent some time discussing wheel design and how wheels could be attached to the main body of their cars.
We then worked through these same steps for their own designs using the sketching tools in the Google Drawing app (as well as pen and paper) to create 2D designs, modeling clay and LEGO blocks to create their 3D prototypes and finally Tinkercad to design their car parts for the 3D printer for manufacturing.
A selection of photos of the students working on their devices, some of their car sketches, clay prototypes and a selection of the finished printed models can be seen below:
