Quick Tip on the cylinders in tinkercad: click on basic shapes, go to design starters, then subheading geometric(blue diamond next to red A). scroll until you see the "high resolution cylinder" and click the highlighted star inside the selection box to add that bad boy to your favorite shapes menu. It's a sanity saver when you're staring at a model with a thousand cylinders wondering if you moved the slider to 64 on every single one.
AMEN! I had my students build models of gears & gear systems (transmissions, reduction gearboxes, etc.) and operate them to obtain the visual reinforcement of their operation. "Hands on" always creates the most effective learning experience. Combined with CAD exposure, modeling gets them ready for challenges of the design world.
Robert, I wish I had you as a teacher/professor in my formative years. you make learnng interesting, practical and fun. Given a problem to solve, step by step, as you do, creates motivation rather than frustration. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love what you do!
I'm designing a 3d printer in Tinkercad and I've been trying to figure out how to align things properly for sometime now. I usually just selected both objects and centered them together with the align tool. I did not realize you could select both objects, followed by the align button, then select the object you want to align to! Thank you so much Robert! This helped a bunch!
This is excellent Robert, thank you! You've talked about using it in the past, but this deep dive and side narrative and your usual build upon your last step is especially helpful. Patti's memorial photo looks wonderful and placed well as she's able to continue to watch you educate others and change lives!
Fantastic introduction to a subject which befuddles many: the 'mystery' of mechanisms! I was fortunate enough to have parents who indulged my building block/'Tinker-toy' & 'Erector'/'Meccano' obsessions. Mathematics was a weakness that stymied my confidence in future study of engineering, but I built tons of plastic models, began scratchbuilding my own...cannibalizing broken toys & appliances. I now share the same with disadvantaged youth and am hoping to bring 3D design & printing into it; maybe they will surmount the math better than I did. Cheers & thank you, Professor...fantastic portrait of Patti above you; be encouraged!
Good to see you getting back into life! My daughter, 15, is taking a high school art class & drafting class with access to BIG 3D printers ....to be using Tinkercad.
Hello Robert. Its so good to have you back making your videos. This one looks awesome! I am so sorry for your loss. Using some of your videos I have put together a complete and comprehensive at home energy project that I would like very much to discuss with you. Its fully developed and ready to be put into homes. I dont have a production or engimeering background. I did own a retail battery business and have done a bunch of research in that arena.
also worth noting for those who havent got into 3d printing is the fact that a lot of mechanisms can be produced from kids toys such as lego, and even meccano if your grandad has an old set in the loft. you could also reproduce these in wood quite easily.
I don't make models, not in engineering school either, but I was working on a software Rubik's cube solver for a few months, with the idea of bringing it into the physical world. Man, what a headache the mechanical part has been as I cut, drill and piece together wood for some of the machanical parts; a lot of trial and error, trying to improve stuff step by step. It's been a totally fascinating undertaking, and now I'm hooked. Up until recently I had taken 'how things are moved' completely for granted. It has been a huge eye opener, and has left me with a hunger to learn the basics.
You wouldn't imagine how long I was looking for the fly in my room until I paused the video to take a more focused look and realize it's in the video 🤣
Thanks Robert! This a good way to explain that very complex things are just a bunch of simple things put together. Appreciate all you do Robert! Thanks again for the video!
Excellent breakdown for engineering design. A systems approach and moving forward with bite size steps. You are an exceptional technical communicator. Bravo Zulu!
Awesome as always Dr. Smith. I started learning FreeCAD by using primitives, but soon learned to start by using flat sketches. It is quicker to adjust the sketch then to remake the model from the primitives. I guess I have learned parametric modeling.
...wonderful stuff Robert, FWIW I always start a project with a humble preliminary sketch. Schematic, flow chart, or whatever is relevant before even touching the tools.
Thank you Robert, I have missed your channel, sort of took a break, thought you were having a go at me, while I have only supported and promoted you, not to mention thinking I was someone else under a false name lol Thought I was subscribed to your channel, but I seem to be getting commercials I will have to check this.
you look leaner and healthier than years ago somehow, and the blue of your eyes has a beautiful tone with that light. Thank you for the video and best wishes i pray for yall
Thanks for the information on the pins and hole sizes Rob. I am actually working on this for my model. Only, I underestimated the amount of clearance that is necessary for them to work correctly. 2 hundredths of a mm rather than the 2 to 4 tenths you showed. Those that say models are a waste of time, are ignorant of the long standing proverbial warning; "It looks good on paper". I think this is due in part too poor educational practices. Years ago I was talking to a modeling engineer at GM and he explained part of the high cost of developing a new automobile. The design engineer sent him the plans for the glove box he was building. He could see that their was a physical obstruction that would prevent the box from fitting where it was supposed to go. He informed the design engineer of the obstruction, and the design engineer insisted that the box would fit. The only way the model engineer could convince the design engineer that the box would not fit, was to build it as it was designed, and show the design engineer that it would not fit. Then the design engineer adjusted the design so that it would work. Sometimes it looks good on paper but it does not work in the real world. Sometimes, it looks good in the virtual world, but it does not work in the real world. That is why models have to be made. To ferret out those areas that both the paper and the virtual, are not revealing.
@scotttovey I am currently stuck on a project because of this very thing. it looked good in the computer and everything worked just fine in sim, but after 3d printing the prototype I discovered a large number of flaws that required fixing. It taught me a very good lesson about real vs "on paper".
Almost everything in our world is a model! The way we think is a model based on our experience of what we have experienced before and how it worked (or didn't) and how we can apply it to a new situation! Even Maths is a model of reality that allows us to extrapolate and change parameters to find an optimum!
i caught a "Vunder" iirc username vid on coilspring crossbows , it was so simple basic to figure finally , he explained it has two big pulleys and two small ones , one big and one small on same axle (2) ...so the heavy pull coil springs on the sides the bow pull the small rollers only , while the longer string only around the larger diameter pulley , so it gets longer pull off the shorter spring pull at the rollers , he made compact, simple spring crossbow this way but it needs a motor cocking mechanism , with a freewheel so it doesn't need to reverse imo ....
I think it would be cool to 3d print Lego technic XXL . And then add extra bricks that you can download.. With the elegoo giant.. Scale 1 to 10.. Including motors.. So you can build yourself an electric motorbike, and transform in into a car the next day :) Including hydraulics, springs, gears, I would be a very happy kid, building my own electric Lego cycle kart at my 10th birthday.. So big you can really drive it..
you get frictional loss and backpressure but i think i can make a linear steam motor using electronic solenoid piloting based on pressure in the chamber off a boiler , so i can control the flow by a flow regulator ball valve or control the speed it discharges and set the pressure , all electronic and pressure switch controlled , to quick exhaust type valve into the cylinder , but i'd copy the bicycle freewheel , steal that as my crankshaft for each cylinder or two ..../ranting
When i bought my 3d printer, i tried to make a small tool case for my small screwdriver set. Turns out its actually pretty tricky to make a hinge and locking mechanism. Things we take for granted. Much trial and error and many failed prototypes.
Your probably. Getting those tolerances right is a challenge. Im using older 3d software ( Lghtwave 3d ) for modelling and export to stl. I should check out TinkerCad.
Sorry for the off-topic comment, but that video clip of the woman stretching has to be Cape Town South Africa? I'm sure it's the 12 Apostles in the background but I'm looking for some verification lol.
@@ThinkingandTinkering thanks man! So that's definitely Cape Town South Africa FYI (nothing important just thought I'd share a detail. And I'm proud of the beautiful landscape haha).
@@ThinkingandTinkering For what it's worth, I think you're a genuine legend and the work you do is a real service to the public. Your efforts are valued and appreciated. Big hug to you bud
It can be pretty tough to 3d print parts with tight size tolerances.. For fitting and snapping parts together.. That has to do with drive gear designs of 3d printers..if it has to put pressure on the nozzle it often loses about 10-20% of material output.. First layer is never perfect.. Temperature differences.. Warping..every material has its own temperature curve.. Thats Als why I think 3d printing + casting is better.. Make one perfect mold and copy
thats why i wanna make a doddy drive i thought of using earnshaw's theorem to make a design so that the spin is stabilized through the geometric arrangement of the magnets, but i cant afford a pack of small neodymium magnets to prove my design i am so finncially deprived, because you would not even need a ball bearing the magnets' specific arrangement is specifically aligned in such an array as to prevent the levitating spinning object from doddering in its spin with being anchored to a bearing to stabilize the spin. hence the name doddy drive. I would make a prototype with styrafoam into which I would press small neodymium magnets in specific arrangements to overcome the problems posed by earnshaw's theorem, for a maglev AC generator with no points of friction - as a prototype.
Harking back to your last video, I look at lots of patents. Often, you can look at a patent and say, "This guy has NEVER built this." Your point about the necessity of building at least a model is important. So many ideas are "good" on paper. But unless you actually build the thing, you don't know if it is going to work in the real world.
Did you come across this scientific report 'Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor' ? Apparently these nodules can generate 'high voltage potentials (up to 0.95 V)' . Yikes‼️.
Maby i am a little bit asken to much . Bud i Print my bearings. Rolbearings. And they work of the buildplate. Why everybody thinks you need to Buy them is a real mind question. You can print them up just as big as your buildplate. And whit p.e.t.g. There mindblowing strong. Its just a waste of money. To buy them
