Recommendations for young student 3D software?

Alibre Express is still free and no longer has any ads. Alibre also has educational pricing, but seems to be more geared to universities.

--Scott

Doing my small part for education today, tomorrow and Friday I'm showing kids in 5th grade Math classes what an engineer can do with 3D software (SolidWorks specifically, of course). I should have anticipated that some would be interested enough to want to thrash around with some 3D applications. I don't really know what to recommend in the way of freeware that won't frustrate a kid, and I don't know whether anyone knows of low-cost student-edition software worthy of trying to obtain for late-elementary school or middle school computer labs . . . or even for parents to buy for home. I personally don't think SolidWorks is appropriate, although it's likely to be as user-friendly as most things out there and more user-friendly than much of it. Has anybody played around with low-end stuff that's even worth looking at? I know about Rhino3D and SketchUp. Does Alibre have a student edition offering? What about Think3 (or whatever used to be Think3)? What else, and what's it like?

TIA Mark 'Sporky' Stapleton Watermark Design, LLC

I don't see any "Alibre Express" on their site, Scott. Only an evaluation version, and it seems implicit that it either times out or it's crippleware in some other fashion. Is the eval version what you're referring to?

Thanks, Mark

Sporky,

Don't undersell the capablity of a 10 year old (I"m being proven wrong on a daily basis with my kid!)

SolidWorks might do the job if you limit what menus to use and the scope of design. (i.e just because we can do something doesn't mean we should).

For example, I'm exploring the creation of a racecar frame using the weldment feature in parts. Set up the library components for the square, rectangular, and tubing so all they have to do is point and click.

One file type, one toolbar, and a bunch of 3D sketches. You can teach them all they need to know. Personal edition is free and they can explore the drawing and other functions should they want to. This limits the amount of new material they need to digest before creating something "kewl". Most of the oops' they create can be fixed by giving them some trouble shooting techniques.

Not saying this would work for your case but just another point of view.

Good luck.

Len

Sporkman wrote:

WT

"Personal Edition"? Free? Whereizzit?

Thanks, Mark

snipped-for-privacy@edatasoluti>

Thank yuh, very much!! Doesn't seem obviously linked from the main Web site. Maybe that's accidentally on purpose (?).

The "new" website doesn't list it. I've got the 2003 version and I know there was a 2004. Pretty sure my VAR mentioned a 2005. Might want to contact your local VAR. They weren't advertised or well known. Had to ask for mine as I was giving 4 day training to local college and figured some of the students would want to play with them.

Think they were good for 90 days computer node locked and didn't work with educational or commercial version. I've got 12-14 of them new in the box never used. If you can't find anything else you are welcome to them (assuming they aren't too old).

Len

There's always Cosmic Blobs...

-Kevin

I have groups of school visitors as young as 9 go through tutorial 8. Takes about 50 minutes and they seem to do better than the adults.

--Scott

"Personal Edition"? Free? Whereizzit?

Thanks, Mark

snipped-for-privacy@edatasoluti>

Maybe you want to check also IronCad. it has a 30 day non-crippled trial version. Rhino too has a trial version limited to 10 saves and downloadable from their web-site.

Thanks to everyone. It seems hard to beat a FREE Alibre Design Express, but I'll list some of these other ideas to the students as well. So far they've been highly receptive and some of them have been positively stoked after looking at what can be done easily with software such as SolidWorks. If you have kids in late elementary, middle school or high school think about offering to do a demo for them through a math or science teacher. You never know -- you might be helping to turn on the next generation's engineers.

'Sporky'

Gil Alsberg wrote:

Ahoy Sporky,

Have ye looked at the solidblobs?

Arrrrr