Chapter 6
Creating the Baseplate

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating and saving your new Tinkercad project
• Setting up private or public access to your new project
• Using the Tinkercad basic shapes to develop the base plate
• Utilizing the Tinkercad Work planes to your advantage

In this chapter, you discover how you can create a nameplate that you print later in 3D and
mount on your office door, thus promoting your entry into Tinkercad geekdom.
Working with the Tinkercad basic shapes, you develop the base plate of the nameplate and
find out how to use the 3D work planes in Tinkercad to your advantage

Starting and Saving a New Project

You need to set up a new project that you can use to create your nameplate. You can call
Tinkercad projects anything you like. I named my new project My Nameplate.
In this chapter, you discover what you need to do to create your nameplate:
1. Set up a new project.
2. Create a blank Tinkercad design.
3. Decide on public or private access to your design.
4. Decide on design properties and licensing.
You can also find out about basic Tinkercad tasks, such as using the Work plane, grid, and
basic shapes.
You may have done some of these steps already, and if you have, you may want to jump
ahead a little.

Setting Up Your Project

If you have a project set up already, refer to the Creating a Blank Design section. Otherwise,
follow these steps to set up your project:
1. Click on the Create project button in the Projects panel, shown in Figure 6-1.
A new unnamed project appears. In Figure 6-1, my new unnamed project is Project 2.
2. Click on your new project in the Projects panel.
The project opens, but it has no Tinkercad designs. You see the Tinkercad screen, shown in
Figure 6-2.
3. Click on Add a description.
4. In the dialog box that appears, name your project, give it a description, and
click on Save changes.
In this example, I called my project My Nameplate and gave it a description of My new office
nameplate.
Figure 6-3 shows you the dialog box with the completed project name and description.

FIGURE 6-1: The Projects panel and the Create project button.

FIGURE 6-2: A Tinkercad project, ready for naming.

FIGURE 6-3: The Project properties dialog box, complete with project name and project description.

Creating a Blank Design

After you create a project, you need to create a new blank design that will be in your project.
Select your project from the list on the left side of the screen and follow these steps:
1. Click on the Create drop-down list, shown in Figure 6-4, and choose 3D
Design.
After clicking on the 3D Design option, Tinkercad takes you to a new default blank Tinkercad
design. Notice the random, default name for the project at the top left of the Tinkercad screen.
2. Click on the project name and rename your design.
In this example, name the project to Yourname’s Office Nameplate, where Yourname is your
first name.
Figure 6-5 shows my new project with its new name.
3. Click on the Tinkercad logo icon.
You return to the Tinkercad home page where you’re still logged in.
Your new project appears in the Projects panel, and your new project appears in My recent
designs, as shown in Figure 6-6.

FIGURE 6-4: The 3D Design option.

FIGURE 6-5: My newly named Tinkercad project.

FIGURE 6-6: The Tinkercad home page with your newly created nameplate design.

Choosing Public or Private Access

As Tinkercad is open and on the Internet in the public domain, you can decide whether to
make your designs public or private. If your designs are private, they remain solely available
to you to view when you log in to your Tinkercad account.
If you make them public, however, you can get feedback on your designs with Likes in a
similar way to liking a picture or a post on social media.
To make your design public, you need to change its properties. You can do so by hovering
over the gearwheel icon in your nameplate design in the My recent designs area. The
gearwheel icon is your individual options for your Tinkercad design.
Figure 6-7 shows the nameplate design, with the Options gearwheel highlighted in orange.

FIGURE 6-7: The nameplate design with the Options gearwheel highlighted in orange.
When you click on the Options gearwheel, a small drop-down menu appears. Choose
Properties from the menu, and the Design properties dialog box appears.
This dialog box has two sections:
• Design properties
• Licenses

Choosing Design Properties

In the Design properties dialog box, you can change your design name, give your design a
more detailed description, add tags to it so that it can be found more easily on the Internet,
and set the design to public or private. These properties, shown in Figure 6-8, are simple and
easy to set.

FIGURE 6-8: The Design properties dialog box.

Deciding on Licensing

If your nameplate design is public, it’s a legal requirement that it has to be licensed. Without
going in to deep legal stuff, a Creative Commons license protects your design and your
intellectual property.
Basically, this license protects your design by way of allowing others to use it, but not for
commercial gain. In other words, they can’t copy it and sell it without your say so.
Numerous Creative Commons license models are out there, and they’re listed in the drop down menu for licensing in the Design properties dialog box.
The Design properties dialog box also has a link to the Creative Commons website. Use
this link and investigate which Creative Commons license is best for you and your design.
Figure 6-9 shows you the various Creative Commons licenses you can use for your Tinkercad
design.

FIGURE 6-9: The License drop-down menu in the Design properties dialog box.
After you set all your properties in the Design properties dialog box, click on Save changes.

Using the Work plane

After you set up all your properties in your design, you’re ready to add some content to your
design.
Hover over your nameplate design in My recent designs on the Tinkercad home page, and
you see the Tinker this button highlighted. Click on it, and Tinkercad loads up your new
blank design.

Setting up your dimensions

You now need to get all your Work plane settings up and running.
To give you an idea of how big you need your nameplate to be, the suggested metric
dimensions are 200 mm x 80 mm. If you want to go imperial, the suggested dimensions are 8
inches x 3 ¼ inches.
These metric dimensions will fit nicely on the default grid in the Tinkercad Work plane
(which is metric, you will notice). They have been set up this way to give you an example in
Tinkercad that is workable within default settings to allow you to get started straight away,
so to speak.
Bear in mind though, that these sizes are only suggestions. You can go bigger or smaller, if
you like. You may also prefer to set your dimensions as imperial (feet and inches).
For the purposes of clarity, the base plate in this chapter is set to the metric millimeters
dimensions.

Editing the grid

After you have enough space on the Work plane, you need to use Edit grid to give yourself
enough space:
1. Click on the Edit grid button, which is located on the bottom right of the
Tinkercad design screen.
You see the Grid properties dialog box, shown in Figure 6-10.
2. Set the following settings for metric millimeters.
• Units: Millimeters (inches)
• Presets: Default
• Width: 350 (14)
• Height: 200 (8)
If you’re using alternate units of measurement, such as imperial, set the settings accordingly.
3. Click on Update Grid.
You see the grid on the Work plane change.
4. Zoom accordingly using your mouse wheel to ensure the newly sized grid fits
on your Tinkercad screen.

FIGURE 6-10: The Grid properties dialog box.
Notice that the presets in the Grid properties dialog box have been left at the default
setting. If you want to use a specific 3D printer grid setting, a variety of 3D printers are
listed in the Presets drop-down menu. Simply select the printer you want to use to 3D
print your design, and the preset automatically sets the width and height of the grid for
you.

Using Basic Shapes

Tinkercad gives you an extensive library of component shapes you can use to develop your
3D designs. By adding these component shapes and using the 3D editing tools in Tinkercad,
you can develop many complex objects.
As you progress with Tinkercad, you’ll discover that your Tinkercad Basic Shapes are just the
tip of the iceberg. You can archive your own libraries of component and complex shapes for
re-use for your designs.
You can find the Tinkercad Basic Shapes menu in the panel to the right of the Tinkercad
design screen.

Adding a box to the Work plane

The most basic of basic Tinkercad shapes is the box. The Box shape has two iterations in the
Tinkercad Basic Shapes menu:
• The transparent box is denoted by a 3D box icon with gray hatched lines. You use
this box to create box-shaped voids in other solid 3D shapes in Tinkercad.
• The solid box is denoted by a 3D box icon colored in red. You use this box to create
box-shaped solids in Tinkercad.
To create the base plate of your nameplate, you need to add a solid 3D box to the Tinkercad
Work plane. If your panel is set to Tinkercad Basic Shapes, you see the 3D box icons, which
are both gray hatched and red in color.
To place your box on the Work plane, click on the red box and simply drag it on to the
Work plane. It adapts to the Work plane grid and sits on top of the grid (see Figure 6-11).

FIGURE 6-11: A solid red box placed on the grid in the Tinkercad Work plane.

Sizing your box

After you place your box on the Work plane, you need to size it appropriately. If the box you
placed is currently selected, its displays its grips on its corners (the small white squares) and
the Shape window is displayed.
You can adjust the size of the box shape in the Shape window. I used the following settings,
which are shown in Figure 6-12:
• Width: 200
• Length: 80
• Height: 10

FIGURE 6-12: The Tinkercad design screen with the base plate sizes set.
The base plate will adjust accordingly, and you now have your base plate ready to go!
If you’re using imperial inches for your base plate, change the width and length to 8
inches x 3 ¼ inches and the height to 0.5. Also, using the sliders to get exact dimensions
can be annoying, but you can adjust your dimensions by clicking on the required
dimension and typing the dimension value in directly.
Using the grid on the Work plane, make sure you have your base plate set nice and
neatly on a grid intersection on the Work plane. Simply select the base plate and drag it to
a suitable intersection so that it sits exactly on the grid. This makes things much easier
when working on your design because the Work plane grid can then be used as a point of
reference.