We’ll try to cover a lot here, but there’s no limit to learning and expanding your skills. Here are a couple options worth considering:

• Tinkercad Blog: Accessible via the dashboard’s Resources, the blog provides tips, hints, and tricks such as the handy keyboard shortcuts Tinkercad 3D design link.
• Social media: Links to Tinkercad on Twitter can be useful for educators. A lot of videos on YouTube show various techniques on how to construct items in Tinkercad.
• Direct support: Autodesk also provides a nice printable handout for 3D Design and Circuits.
• All3DP: That’s right, we have a number of Tinkercad articles including a beginner’s tutorial.

All Things

Tinkercad

3D Design allows you to create anything as a 3D model. The only limit with regard to what can be designed is your creativity.

You can turn your designs into Minecraft models with the Blocks button, which can be used with the Java edition of Minecraft. You can also create a Lego brick design from your design by clicking the Bricks button. This may be useful for makers who want to create a plastic brick model, such as the NES game console Raspberry Pi housing as an alternative to 3D printing.

What Tinkercad isn’t capable of is 2D design, animated models, analyses, or simulations. Of course, that doesn’t stop you from designing items capable of movement, such as hinges and gears.

Also important is that Tinkercad 3D design can’t create machine paths for milling or 3D printing. In other words, the platform doesn’t include a slicer. This means you will always need a third-party program to turn your designs into reality.

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Use Cases

• Creating 3D models
• Creating models for CNC mills or routers
• Teaching
• Creating Minecraft and Lego models

Limitations

• No simulation and analysis options such as FEM, finding the center of gravity of a model, etc.
• No interactive modeling such as hinge and movement simulation
• No special libraries for professional use
• No conversion of 3D objects to 2D plans
• No mesh tools, sheet metal mode, etc.
• No machining tool path functionality
• Restricted set of formats available for import and export
• No surface rendering beyond colors
• Limited freehand capabilities

Navigating Tinkercad’s 3D Design workspace is relatively intuitive.

• The topmost bar (outlined in yellow) includes platform- and mode-specific options, like returning to the dashboard and changing to Minecraft mode.
• The second topmost bar or the main menu (green) includes model-specific operations, like copy and group.
• Workspace orientation tools (black) include the standard rotatable cube and zoom options.
• The shape menu (blue) provides all the various shapes that can be added to the workplane.

By default, Tinkercad gives you a wide selection of basic shapes (outlined in purple), as well as an “empty” cube and cylinder to work with. If you would like something more niche, the drop-down menu has various categories, such as Creatures & Characters and Hardware. If you want something specific, you might try using the search function. Once you click a shape from the right menu, you then have to drag it to the desired spot and click again to place it on the workplane (the blue grid).

Shape Manipulation

Selecting, moving, and resizing a shape is done with your mouse or touchpad. When selecting a shape on the workplane, two things happen: The shape will be given little white and black squares called handles (red), rotation arrows, and a raise or lower cone. You should also see a submenu in the top-right corner.

By selecting and dragging the squares, we can resize the shape, optionally holding Shift to keep dimensions proportional. When resizing, textboxes are shown with the dimensions, which can be edited directly for precise measurements.

Although not visible, an extremely handy keyboard shortcut is ‘D’, which sets the selected object on the current workplane, whether the general one or a user-placed one.

Depending on the shape, there can be a variety of attributes (green). In this case, we see the attributes for a box, but the most important attributes are the following:

• Lock: Keeps an object from being selected or changed.
• Hide: Makes an object invisible. Click the “Show All” button to reveal it.
• Solid or hole: Every shape is either a solid or a hole. When grouped with each other, the hole sections are literally erased from solid portions. Select “Solid” to adjust the color.

Using solid and hollow are core functions of Tinkercad (to be used alongside the group operation), and many of the other attributes differ depending on the model. (For example, cones have a top and bottom radius.)

Shape Coordination

In addition to your basic functions – copy, paste, duplicate, delete, undo, and redo – there are also some that are more specific for manipulating and adjusting 3D objects. Here are the most important ones:

• Group: Combines selected shapes into a new shape. This is equivalent to a Boolean operation.
• Ungroup: Separates a selected group into its component parts.
• Align: Allows you to move selected shapes in line with one another. In any of the three dimensions, you can align according to the edge, middle, or other edge of either selected object (e.g. top, middle, bottom).
• Mirror: Flips the selected shape along the chosen axis.

Workplanes, Dimensions & Notes

In the workplane settings, found in the bottom-right corner of the workspace (outlined in blue), you can adjust the grid size, toggle the grid and shadows, as well as specify which units you are using. The Snap Grid setting determines the interval that objects can move.

Above the shapes menu, we find the Workplane, Ruler, and Notes tools, outlined in red, green, and yellow, respectively. By far the most important is the Workplane tool, which allows you to click on the surface of any shape and make that surface a new, temporary workplane (indicated by turning orange) around which all shapes are oriented. Returning to the default workplane can be done by applying the tool to an empty space.

Importing & Exporting

Above the Workplane, Ruler, and Notes tools, you can find the following (outlined in yellow):

• Import: Import 2D and 3D files, including SVG, STL, and OBJ file formats, up to 25 MB.
• Export: Export all or part of a project as an OBJ, STL, or GLB file for 3D printing and SVG for laser cutting.
• Send to: Transfer the design to Fusion 360 for further use, download it as an image, or send it to a number of 3D model websites, such as Thingiverse, Prusa’s Printables, or MyMiniFactory.

Blocks

You might have noticed the Minecraft-like axe in the upper-right corner. When clicked, the current project is converted into a Minecraft model. As most of the editing and creating is done in the Workplane, this page features only a few buttons and areas.

Bricks

What’s that funny Lego-like box? The Bricks button converts the current model into a Lego brick model. This page is pretty much exactly the same as with the previous Blocks one.

Considering it’s mostly drag and drop, using 3D Design is easy, but it comes at the expense of finesse in certain situations. For example, creating screw threads can be achieved, but one can’t simply select a standardized thread, as you can with many other design suites.

Depending on the intricacy of the designs, it can be challenging to think in terms of solids and holes to achieve complex structures. While it’s not impossible to achieve, there comes a point where more technically-minded applications, such as Fusion 360, may be better suited. The design process is fluid enough to run on most PCs, even with slow internet connections.

As with many other software suites, there are plenty of projects, tutorials, and YouTube videos that provide varying qualities of instructions on a multitude of subjects. Tinkercad’s own Learning center is useful for most problems or questions. The provided tutorials are child-safe and reduce the need for too many internet searches.

If you’re interested in alternatives to Tinkercad’s 3D Design suite, here are some worth considering:

• MS Paint 3D
• 3D Slash
• Leopoly

Even More

The Best Tinkercad Alternatives of 2023

Before going into more detail, let’s briefly set out the possibilities and the limits of Circuits. This part of Tinkercad allows the creation of electronic circuits and simulations, but it doesn’t allow custom components to be imported, which could be a problem. Circuits allows variables to be created in the coding section, but it doesn’t support the design of new code blocks. In other words, we have to get along with what’s available to us.

Use Cases

• Learning about basic circuitry and electronics
• Simulating circuitry
• Teaching

Limitations

• Restricted availability of components
• Restricted availability of programming blocks

The layout of Circuits is similar to that of 3D Design, with a few minor differences. Once again, the topmost bar (outlined in yellow) includes platform- and mode-specific options, the second topmost bar or the main menu (red) includes circuit-specific operations, the parts menu (purple) provides all available components, and the design area (green) is where you, well, design!

Here is a quick list of components you’ll find in Tinkercad. (Note that this list is by no means exhaustive.)

• Basic components: Such as resistors, potentiometers, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and capacitors. The values associated with resistors, potentiometers, and other components can be selected according to your needs in a pop-up menu that appears once a component is chosen.
• Basic integrated circuits: Such as timers, optocouplers, and comparators.
• Logic circuits: Such as NAND, AND, and OR gates.
• Arduino Uno starter: A premade circuit for an Arduino on which users can expand.
• Micro:Bit starters: Another premade circuit but for the Micro:Bit.

After opening a new circuits project page, the large empty gray area is your design space. You can select and drag any component into the design space. To create connections between components, you simply click on the relevant connection point of the component and drag it to the next connection point you choose. That’s it!

You can alter the connection (wire) colors for clarity and edit the names of your components as required. Depending on what you design, you can then click on the code button to open up the coding area (outlined in orange). Here you can find premade code blocks for programming microcontrollers, such as the Arduino Uno (which is available in Circuits). A serial monitor and oscillograph round up the tools at your disposal. You can actually see the programs you create with code blocks written out as a program in C after downloading it as an Arduino file and opening it with a text editor.

Circuits allows you to create a range of circuits, from very simple to fairly advanced circuitry. However, it is restricted by which components and code blocks are at your disposal.

Overall, Circuits is an amazing product that’s easy and clear to use. Dragging, dropping, and occasionally entering text isn’t taxing by any means. But the ease of use comes with restrictions in terms of the flexibility of components. You have to make do with what’s available. In all fairness, this is brilliant for learning purposes because finding workarounds requires deeper understanding and creativity while avoiding unnecessary jargon and confusion. Advanced users might not be that thrilled, though.

The code block style of programming is easy thanks to its drag-and-drop nature. Naturally, it’s aimed at beginners and can be a little confusing to start with if you’re already familiar with programming. Nevertheless, the overall experience is smooth, without any technical issues.

Lastly, the simulation experience is well done, it’s a great feature to be able to manipulate environmental variables, such as humidity and light while running the program. The serial monitor as well as any visual electronic indications, such as LEDs, provide effective feedback on what is happening when a simulation is running. And of course, the virtual oscilloscope provides yet another mode of feedback by displaying the resulting signals in real time.

Wondering what some alternatives to Tinkercad’s circuits might be? Wonder no more:

• MS Make Code
• Wokwi Arduino simulator
• Virtual Breadboard

Compared to Scratch, Codeblocks has some notable differences in terms of possibilities and limits. The sky is the limit but only as long as it fits within the existing code blocks. New code blocks can’t be created, which is the same for Scratch, but Codeblocks has fewer blocks on offer, as it’s skewed towards 3D design rather than programming.

Any 3D object you create can be exported as an SVG, OBJ, STL, or GLIB file, and any animation created can be shared as a shape or GIF.

Use Cases

• Creating 3D models
• Creating programs
• Learning programming

Limitations

• No export function for created programs
• No access to underlying engine
• Limited to 3D modeling-related programming
• Restricted availability of code blocks
• Restricted availability of shapes

As you might expect, Codeblocks is laid out in a very similar way to 3D Design and Circuits. The topmost bar (outlined in orange) includes platform- and mode-specific options, the second topmost bar or the main menu (blue) includes code-specific operations, the blocks menu (red) provides all available code blocks, and the 3D viewer (green) shows your creation as it happens.

Code blocks are sorted by categories. Let’s look at each one to get an idea of what’s at our disposal.

• Shapes: Here there are basic shapes, from a box to a star.
• Modify: This section is for creating, copying, deleting, and generally modifying shapes.
• Control: These code blocks are for repeating, counting, and pausing functions.
• Math: These are for creating and changing variables, angles, and axes.
• Data: Depending on your code, if you’re generating data, it will be shown here.
• Mark-up: These are code blocks for inserting comments and creating messages.

Codeblocks is an interesting addition to Tinkercad, as it combines coding and 3D modeling. The program runs smoothly without any mishaps. Some labels are missing when hovering over some icons, but that’s not really a problem. The program is mostly self-explanatory, but for first-time users, a quick start option exists every time a new Codeblocks project is created.

With Codeblocks, you can perform parametric modeling and create animated 3D objects. The main restrictions come as a result of the code blocks that are available. Additionally, parametric modeling is restricted to the dimensions of the code blocks. Issues will arise if you design and would like to alter a more complex body. While not impossible, it falls short of a more professional program that offers a dedicated list of editable parameters for the design.

Exploration and learning are encouraged through available Codeblocks projects, such as the one in the image above as well as tutorials in the resource center. Codeblocks has been designed for educational purposes with fun and ease of use in mind. Watching the animated build processes or going through it step by step is a nice feature. It runs smoothly and quickly, even with imperfect connections.

Just in case, here are some alternatives to Tinkercad’s CodeBlocks:

• Scratch
• Tynker
• Snap