Lesson video

Hello, welcome back to 3D modelling.

My name's Josh, I'm your computing teacher for this unit.

In lesson three, we're going to look at the rotation and position of 3D objects in our workspaces.

At the end of this lesson, you'll have created a 3D model of a keyring.

As always, you're going to need a pen and some paper, so make sure you grab those now before we get started.

You will also need your class code and nickname, which you used in lesson one and two to sign into the Tinkercad software.

Please find a nice quiet space free from distractions.

And if you've got all those bits ready, we can make a move.

So in lesson three, we're going to look at constructing a digital 3D model of a physical object.

To do this, we are going to rotate 3D objects.

We're going to look at positioning 3D objects in relation to one another.

And we're going to look at selecting and duplicating multiple 3D objects at a time.

The first thing I want you to think about is rotation.

So I want you to think about what rotation means.

I'd also like you to think about what that means in relation to a 3D object.

So if you have a 3D object, what will happen to it when you rotate it? Pause the video, consider those two questions, make some notes.

And resume the video once you've finished.

Okay, so rotation, what does rotation mean? So rotation is the action of movement around a centre or access point.

Now, if we think about that in relation to a 3D object, we can think about 3D objects having a middle point, a centre point.

And what happens is if we are just rotating that 3D object, the object will move around that centre point.

It won't move its relative position, but it will spin around that centre axis.

Now, this will happen regardless of which way you rotate it, okay? It will always move around that centre point.

So remember, the relative position won't move, but it will spin around the centre point that it has.

What we're going to do now then is we're going to jump in to that Tinkercad software.

And we're going to check out how we rotate 3D objects within that 3D modelling area.

Welcome to my Tinkercad dashboard then.

This is going to look very similar to what yours would look like when you sign in.

Now, remember, to get to this point, you need to visit the tinkercad.

com website, use the Sign In button, and use your class code and your nickname.

I'm just going to create a new design, so we can just very briefly look at rotation.

I'm just going to change my name up here to 3D shape rotation, so I know what my project is about.

And let's drag a cube onto the workplane.

Remember to use the buttons that we've already talked about in lesson one to support you with this.

And in lesson two, we looked at these square handles here in order to resize our boxes.

Remember to do that.

If you use the white squares, you can resize in more than one direction.

And if you use the black squares, you can rotate right or left.

Not rotate, sorry, you can resize your blocks right or left.

We also used our height handle up here, and we can change that using this.

And we looked at lifting our objects using our lift handle.

The remaining handles then are these curved handles here, and they have arrows on either side.

And those are our rotation handles.

And if you hover over them, you can see a dial appear.

So you're going to have a go at experimenting with these for your first task.

And we'll look at what they do together once we come back to the Tinkercad software.

So your first task is to experiment with those 3D rotation handles.

I'd like you to consider the four questions on your worksheet as you do that.

Can any 3D object be rotated? Can they be rotated in any direction? What happens if you rotate an object when it's next to a different object? And can you place rotated objects alongside other objects? Pause the video, have a go at completing that.

And resume the video once you're done.

Welcome back, hopefully you had a bit of time there to experiment with rotating your 3D objects, and you looked at those four questions as you did it.

We're going to jump back into the Tinkercad software now, and go through all of those questions together.

All right, so let's have a look at those four questions that you had on your worksheet, and go through some of the answers together.

I've added a few of the 3D objects onto my workplane in order to check out whether all 3D objects can be rotated.

So if we click on them, we can already see that this cylinder has the rotation handles, which suggests to me that that should be able to be rotated.

So let's just have a quick look.

Yep, so we can rotate the cylinder.

We can rotate the cube, as we already know.

We can rotate the sphere.

And we can rotate our triangular prism as well.

So yes, all 3D objects in the Tinkercad software can be rotated.

Can they be rotated in any direction? So that depends really on how you're looking at it.

For example, the cylinder can be rotated left to right.

It can be rotated forwards and backwards.

It can be spun on the spot.

And if we think about it from a logical point of view, yes, they can all be rotated in any direction.

If we had, for example, another object on this side of this cylinder, and we wanted to rotate that object this way, then we would just need to spin that object round, and then do the rotation, okay? So we can rotate them in any direction.

But in order to get to that point, you do have to make sure you're spinning it first before you do the rotation.

We can't rotate in this 45-degree angle, or diagonally across our workplane.

What happens if you rotate a 3D object near another object then? So let's pop this, I'm going to pop this cylinder next to this cube.

And I'm just going to zoom in on those two objects.

And I'm going to spin, or rotate my cylinder so we can see what happens.

So as you can see, you can still rotate your 3D objects if they're next to another object.

The only thing that will happen is that it will push into the other object that's next to it.

If it's close enough to do so, it will push into it.

Just like our object here is pushing through our workplane, which happens because our centre point isn't changing.

It will do the same to the objects that are next to it.

So this is something to be mindful of as we go through this process of creating our models.

Because we need to make sure that we're not accidentally pushing our objects into other objects if we don't want them to be there.

Right, and finally, can you place rotated 3D objects alongside other 3D objects? As you can see, I can move my object as though, the same as I could before it was rotated.

I can use the dashed line along the bottom to line it up next to the other, next to the cube, for example.

And then release that and it is next to, and just touching my cube.

So yes, we can place rotated 3D objects alongside other 3D objects.

Again, it's just about being careful.

It's not taking up the same amount of space on the workplane, so we just need to be mindful of that.

One more thing to be mindful of is when we are rotating certain objects, it might not look like they're rotated at all, okay? So for example, the sphere.

I can rotate the object, and you can see on the workplane that it is moving around.

You can see the pattern on it moving around.

However, when I release it, it doesn't look any different.

And that's just solely because as it would in real life, you can rotate a sphere in real life in real world, but it's still going to look the same when you let go of it, or when you put it in its new position, okay? Based on the faces.

So the cylinder would be the same if we were to rotate it this way.

Not now because it is rotated already.

But if I was to rotate my cylinder back to where it should be and then I spun it, you can see, there's not much change when I let go.

So those are the answers to the worksheet.

I hope you were able to have a go at that in your own Tinkercad project.

And we're going to use some of the things that we just talked about as we move through the rest of our lesson, and we start to build our model of a keyring.

We're going to jump into the slides again, and just have a quick chat about what we're doing next.

So you are going to be creating your own model 3D keyring.

You're going to be able to take an existing project, which is shown on the screen, which is the base project for your keyring.

And you're going to take that, copy it and tinker it.

And then you can make changes within your own workspaces.

So I'm going to show you how to do that in a moment.

The first thing we're going to do is we're going to open up the short link that's shown on the screen.

And we're going to select Copy and Tinker.

So the first thing I'm going to need to do then is I'm going to need to type that short link up into the address bar here.

And you have this short link on your worksheet, so don't worry about remembering this one.

And that will bring me to this 3D design of a keyring base.

And as you can see, I've got Copy and Tinker here, this blue button here, which is what I'm going to select.

You may have to sign in again if it hasn't remembered that you're already signed in.

And I'm going to select that now.

And what that does is that opens up a copy of that keyring base.

So it's the exact same model, except now it's a copy of that model, and it's in my dashboard now, okay? So this is now my project.

So I can edit this as much as I like, and it won't affect that base project.

Now, we're going to go through a few tools that we can use as we move through the rest of this lesson, and create our own 3D model.

The first function we're going to look at then is duplicating or copying and pasting.

Which is very, very similar to the sort of copying and pasting function you get in lots of other softwares where you copy something and you paste it somewhere else.

Now, in 3D modelling in this Tinkercad software, if you use that copying and pasting, you can make quick changes and additions to the 3D model you're creating.

If you have, for example, a cube or a cylinder, and you want to create another one and it's lifted, if you copy and paste the lifted version, once you paste in the new one, it is still lifted to that same height.

So it's a quick way of making sure that you've got something at the same level as the other object you copied.

It can be used for making multiple copies of a 3D object or 3D model, okay? If you selected your entire model, you can make another copy of that model.

And that will be really helpful if all you're doing is making a few design changes.

Sometimes, we just want to tinker with how something looks, but we don't want to lose our original.

So if you copy and paste the whole model, you can make those smaller changes on the copied version.

And finally, if we wanted to 3D print multiple models, and we have the same model, and we wanted to just 3D print that model, you can copy and paste the entire model, and place it around your workplane in order for you to be able to print the same model multiple times at the same time.

So you don't have to print one, wait for that to finish, print another, wait for that to finish.

So let's jump into the Tinkercad software now, and just very quickly look at how to do that.

Right, so copying and pasting or duplicating.

Let's have a look at how we do that inside the 3D modelling software.

So I'm just going to pull this cylinder into my workplane.

I'm going to get a little bit closer to it.

Now, to do the copying and pasting, it's very, very similar to other softwares.

You can either use your shortcuts, as in most softwares, Control + C or Command + C will copy it.

Or you can use this button up here.

And if you hover over that, you can see that says Copy.

So I'm just going to click that.

And what that's done is that saved my cylinder to my clipboard.

Your clipboard is up here.

So you can even press this button, which says Paste.

Or you can use the shortcut Control + V or Command + V, which is again similar to other softwares.

And that will paste another copy of your object next to it, okay? And we can do that again and again and again 'cause that's the last thing that was copied.

If we have a quick look at what will happen now, I've lifted it off of my workplane.

In fact, I'm going to lift it even further.

I'm going to copy that now.

And I'm going to paste it and you can see that it has kept the lift in the new model, or the new object, sorry.

So this is a really important function and it will be really, really helpful when you're creating your models.

If you have things that you want to duplicate, if you have things that are the same height, or the same dimensions and the same lift, then copying that object is the best way to make sure that you do that in a time-efficient manner.

Otherwise, you have to drag another object to your workplane and go through the whole process again and again and again.

So that was duplicating or copying and pasting.

It's a really, really helpful function, so make sure you're using that when you're creating your 3D models.

Let's head back to the slides, and look at a different function that will help us as we move through the rest of this lesson.

So let's assume for a moment that I finished my 3D model.

My keyring is on the screen, as you can see.

But it's not worked as well as I'd like it to have worked.

You can't see all of the letters.

They're not all completely visible.

Pause the video and have a think about why that is.

Resume the video once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

So hopefully then, you've understood that the reason you can't see all of the letters is because they haven't been lifted to the correct height.

Now, this can be a really big issue when we're making our 3D models.

Making sure that things are lined up in the correct way, or are sitting nice and neatly against the thing that we want them to sit against.

Now, fortunately, inside the Tinkercad software, there is a very helpful function to allow us to do that.

So let's head back there now and check that out.

Right, so I want to add something to that white plane in the middle of my keyring.

And if I was to just drag it across and add it in, I would have to lift my object.

So we can see there, it's lifted to the correct height, so that it's on top of the white but not inside it.

Well, I'm going to use those, I'm going to use this tool here.

Now, this is called the Workplane Tool.

So if I click that Workplane Tool, you can see this blue square appear with a teardrop white shape in the middle.

It turns orange if you put it over the top of another object.

And if I click on that, what it does is it gives me a different workplane view.

Now, my new workplane is on top of that white cuboid.

So that's where my new workplane is.

That's where anything I drop onto the workplane now is going to go on top of that white cuboid.

You can still see, I've got my blue workplane underneath.

But you can see, I can use my Workplane Tool now to drop things onto that new workplane.

So now, if I just drag that out a little bit, just so it's easier to see.

And I click my Workplane Tool again, and I click off of the object.

You can see, it's lifted my cone so that it is on top of this white cuboid in the middle of my keyring.

So that's a really handy tool to be able to use.

And it works for all of the different pieces.

So if I popped it on this side, for example, you can see I've now got a vertical workplane.

And now, if I was to drag something on, it would be able to place it directly against where I've added my Workplane Tool.

So that's a really handy way of making sure we can add our different elements to our projects and our models in a quick and easy way.

So we've seen a few function tools now.

You've seen the Copy tool, you've seen this Workplane Tool.

We're going to have a go at creating our own 3D keyrings.

And we're going to jump across to our slides, just to see your task before you set off on that.

Okay, so your final task for this lesson, task two on your worksheet, is to enhance a 3D model of a keyring.

So I've given you that base keyring design, which you need to copy in Tinker back to your own dashboard.

And I'd like you to enhance it by adding your name, or your initials, adding other 3D elements.

And I want you to use all of the skills you've learned so far in lesson one, two and three.

So make sure you're using the Resizing tool.

Make sure you are using your Lifting tool if you want to use that.

Make sure you are using your Rotation tool.

Change the workplane to make it easier for you to layer your objects on top of each other or next to each other.

And using that Copy function if you want to make something that's similar to something you've already made.

So pause the video.

Have a go at enhancing your 3D model of a keyring.

And resume the video once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully then, you've had a bit of time to enhance your 3D model of a keyring.

I'm really looking forward to seeing all of the different models that are made.

Just as a brief look, this is what my keyring came out like.

You can see, I've added my name, and I've added some other elements as well, such as the stars and the diamond shapes on top.

I tried to make mine as colourful as possible.

But remember, if you are 3D printing them, they will only come out in the colour that's installed on the 3D printer.

Before we finish up, I just want you to have a quick think about this question What information would not be appropriate to add to your keyring? Have a quick think about that, pause the video.

And resume the video once you've had a think.

Okay, so hopefully then, you've had a think about what might not be appropriate to add to your keyring.

The main important thing that we are needing to make sure we're doing is keeping ourselves safe.

And to do that, we need to be cautious of the personal information that we are sharing.

So personal information should not be added to your keyring.

These include addresses or email addresses or phone numbers.

Things that you wouldn't want anyone and everyone to be able to access.

You need to make sure you're not adding that to your keyring, which you might take out in public.

So be very, very careful about what you're adding to your 3D models, what information there is, to ensure that you are keeping yourself safe as possible.

So that concludes lesson three of the 3D Modelling Unit.

I hope you've enjoyed creating your 3D model of a keyring using all of the different functionality within the Tinkercad software.

I think it's been a really fun lesson, and I've enjoyed creating my keyring alongside you.

I would love to see the keyrings that you've created, so please do consider sharing them with the Oak National Academy.

If you would like to do that, ask your parent or carer to share it with on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

And tag @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Lesson four is going to be a very exciting lesson, where we're going to be making holes and spaces within other 3D objects in order to further enhance our own 3D models.

I really look forward to seeing you there.