Chapter 3
Taking a Tour of Tinkercad

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Viewing designs
• Changing options and settings
• Working with Tinkercad
• Discovering how to use Tinkercad Help to answer your technical questions
• Entering the Tinkercad community

In this chapter, you take a tour of the Tinkercad screens. You find out how to view your
recent designs and tinker with Tinkercad. You discover how to use the Help screens to access
the amazing knowledge base that is incorporated into Tinkercad. You also explore the
Tinkercad community by visiting the Tinkercad Gallery and blog.

Viewing Recent Designs

Tinkercad provides great visual tools so that you can easily view and open your recent
designs.
When you log in, your Tinkercad profile is on the left side of the screen (see Figure 3-1). Just
to the right of your profile you see your recent designs. In the following example, my existing
Tinkercad design is called Shaun’s Nameplate. All your recent designs have a little preview
box. If you move your mouse over it, you can even manipulate the mini design in the box.
Also, note the Tinker This button that appears. That’s what you click to open your design.

FIGURE 3-1: A partial view of the Tinkercad screen, where you can see your Tinkercad profile and your recent
Tinkercad designs.

Choosing Options and Settings

When you hover over your recent designs, you see a gearwheel cog icon in the top right of
the recent designs box. If you hover over it, an Options tool tip appears. Click it, and
Tinkercad gives you four options, which are shown in Figure 3-2:
• Properties: This option, shown in Figure 3-3, allows you to change your design’s
file properties, such as its name and description. You can add up to five tags to
make your design more searchable, both on Tinkercad and on the Internet in
general. You can also decide on whether you want your Tinkercad design to be
public or private and specify which creative license type applies to your design so
that others give you credit should they use your Tinkercad design as a part of their
designs elsewhere. After you make your changes, click Save changes.
• Duplicate: The Duplicate option, shown in Figure 3-4, does exactly what it says. It
duplicates your Tinkercad design and adds it to your recent designs.
Move to Project: In your Tinkercad profile, you can set up projects. Just click
Create project, and a new project appears on the screen. (It’s normally called
Project 1 or a similar name.) Click on the new project to see the project page.
Click the gearwheel cog on the project page for your new project to name it in your project
properties. After you set up your project name and description, click the Tinkercad logo in the
top left of the screen. You then return to your recent designs where you can add your design to
any existing project. Figure 3-5 shows the Move dialog box that allows you to move your design
to the relevant project.
• Delete: The Delete option does exactly that. It deletes the Tinkercad design. Upon
clicking Delete, you’re asked whether you’re sure you want to delete the design.
Tinkercad is a cloud-based application. There is no Recycle Bin! That means that you
cannot recover any deleted files, so just make sure you want to delete that Tinkercad file before
you click to delete!

FIGURE 3-2: The options available in a recent Tinkercad design when clicking the Options gearwheel cog icon.

FIGURE 3-3: The Properties dialog box.

FIGURE 3-4: A copy of a recent Tinkercad design.

FIGURE 3-5: The Move dialog box, ready to move my Nameplate design in to my Nameplates project.

‘Tinkering’ with Tinkercad

When you hover over any of your recent designs in Tinkercad, a small blue icon appears in
the top-left corner of the small design preview box (see Figure 3-6). It says, quite simply,
Tinker this.

FIGURE 3-6: A recent Tinkercad design.
A tinker is someone who can do a lot of different things — in other words, a jack-of-all trades. Tinkercad allows you to tinker on any type of design in 3D.
When you click Tinker this, Tinkercad opens up a design for you so that you can tinker in Tinkercad.
All of the Tinkercad design tools appear in the Tinkercad drawing screen, shown in Figure 3-
7. The Snap Grid is also there to assist you with your 3D designing

FIGURE 3-7: The Tinkercad drawing screen.

If you have used a CAD or 3D product before, some of the design tools will be familiar to you.
In addition, some of the workflows and processes used in Tinkercad are virtually the same as
other Auto desk applications, such as Auto CAD and Inventor.
Here are a few things you can tinker with:
• Navigation – Mouse and View Cube: Navigation in Tinkercad is a combination of
mouse control and keyboard control. It’s up to you. If you’re a mouse person, utilize
the mouse wheel to zoom in and out by rolling the wheel and pan by holding down
the wheel and moving the mouse. These standard Auto desk navigation methods are
used in many of their applications.
To get different preset views of your Tinkercad design, click on the faces of the View Cube or the
corners of the View Cube. Click a corner, and you see an isometric view. Click a face, and you get
an elevation or plan view. Click an edge, and you get an elevation or plan view. Figure 3-8
shows an isometric view of my design.
• Drag and Drop: If you haven’t got any 3D solids or elements in your design yet, use
the drag and drop functionality to drag a 3D basic shape from the Basic Shapes
shown on the right side of the Tinkercad screen. Simply click the shape you want
and drag it in to the drawing area, known as the Work plane. The Work plane is the
pale blue grid that fills the drawing area of the Tinkercad screen.
• Viewing tools: The Tinkercad viewing tools appear below the View Cube, on the
left hand side of the Tinkercad screen. As you work down the icons, you can hover
over them to see their names: Home view, Fit all in view, Zoom in, Zoom out, and
Switch to Orthographic view. After you have a shape in your design on the
Work plane, tinker with the viewing tools to familiarize yourself with them.

FIGURE 3-8: My Shaun’s Nameplate design in an isometric view set by the corresponding view on the
View Cube. Note the highlighted corner of the View Cube. Tinker in Tinkercad to get used to the interface. You should find the interface easy to use,
even if you haven’t ever used a CAD product.

Finding the Right Help

As the saying goes, good help is hard to find these days. That is not so with Tinkercad.
Because Tinkercad is cloud-based, you’re always on the Internet. This constant connectivity
means that the Help screens in Tinkercad are always up to date with the newest information
that you need to help drive and tinker with your Tinkercad designs.
To access Tinkercad Help, go to http://support.tinkercad.com. You will need to use your
Tinkercad login to log in to the page as well. Once logged in, type your topic in the search box
(see Figure 3-9).

Credit: Auto desk, Inc.
FIGURE 3-9: The Tinkercad Help page.
If you want to keep the Tinkercad Help page open all the time, consider opening it in
another instance of your browser. That way, you’ll have two browsers open and can
quickly jump between the two screens.

Tweeting on Twitter

If you tweet, you can find Tinkercad on Twitter using the Twitter name @tinkercad. This
great Twitter page, shown in Figure 3-10, often has multiple posts on the same day. You can
tweet your Tinkercad posts on Twitter and include the @tinkercad name to get your own
Tinkercad tweets noticed. Maybe you have a new Tinkercad design you want to get noticed?

Credit: Auto desk, Inc.
FIGURE 3-10: The Tinkercad Twitter account.

Browsing the Gallery

You can find the Tinkercad Gallery, shown in Figure 3-11, at www.tinkercad.com. You don’t
even have to be logged in to Tinkercad to peruse all the amazing designs in the Gallery. You
can also upload your own designs, if you want to!
You can find the Gallery listed at the top left of the Tinkercad home page, just in case you
weren’t sure where to find it. It also has the web page URL of www.tinkercad.com/things.
If your browser page is a bit thin (not maximized), you may find that the menu items are
consolidated into a menu icon on the far right of the browser screen.

Credit: Auto desk, Inc.
FIGURE 3-11: The Tinkercad Gallery in all its splendor!

Reading the Tinkercad Blog

You can find the link to the Tinkercad blog at the top of the Tinkercad home page
(www.tinkercad.com). It also has its own web page at http://blog.tinkercad.com. When you
click the link at the top of the Tinkercad home page, the blog opens in a separate tab in your
Internet browser.
The Tinkercad blog, shown in Figure 3-12, is a great reference resource, providing Tinkercad
users with items of interest and all things Tinkercad. The latest news on Tinkercad is always
in there, as well as some great technical posts that can be really helpful.

Credit: Auto desk, Inc.
FIGURE 3-12: The Tinkercad blog.