Learning resources
The tutorials, sample designs, Quick design projects, Guide and language help built into SchoolCAD, and links teachers can give a class.
SchoolCAD has learning built in at several levels, so each student can work at the right one: step-by-step tutorials, finished samples to explore, Quick design for a set project, and a Guide for modelling freely. This page lists what is in SchoolCAD now.
Tutorials#
A tutorial breaks a project into small steps, with a checklist for each step. The tool to use is highlighted, each step is checked as you go, a hint says what to fix, and Show me builds the step for you when you are stuck (you can then see how it was made in the feature tree). A tutorial is an ordinary design with steps attached, so you keep what you make and can carry on changing it.
To start one, click Documents, find Tutorials and click Start. Hide steps hides the tutorial while you model freely, and Show steps brings it back.
Design a surf handplane#
Timber · splines, intersect, holes on a curved deck, fillets · 8 steps
Model your own handplane from a Paulownia blank: the outline as a spline, the rocker and thickness from the side, and the holes for the strap plugs, then an optional concave and rounded rails. A final check tests your design against the workshop's rules. Show me offers five starting shapes. When it is finished, Export → Handplane template (1:1) prints a full-size template of your own design, on one A3 sheet or two A4 sheets.
Sample designs#
Finished, fully defined designs to explore and change. Click Documents, then Open a copy under Sample designs: the copy is yours to change.
| Sample | What to try |
|---|---|
| Display bookcase | Timber, housing joints and standard DAR pine. Change W or H in Parameters and it all rebuilds. Then try the drawing and the cut list. |
| Two-step stool | Timber, with stepped sides. One Hole feature, repeated with a Pattern. Change H in Parameters to make it taller. |
| Laser-cut box | Plywood, with finger joints. Change W, D, H or t and every finger is worked out again. Then Export → Laser cut file (DXF). |
Each sample also has ready-made sets of sizes, called configurations. See Parameters.
Quick design projects#
Quick design lets every student finish a set project by changing only the parts the teacher has opened up, then print true-size templates and make laser files. Your teacher tells you which project to open.
Help while you work#
- The Guide, on the right of the Part Studio, explains whatever you are doing, with a checklist that ticks itself off. Choose Full, Hints or Off. See SchoolCAD basics.
- Search tools (Alt+C) finds any tool, even by the name Onshape, Fusion or SOLIDWORKS gives it.
- Keyboard shortcuts: press ?, or click Shortcuts in the status bar. See Keyboard shortcuts.
Languages and word help (EAL/D)#
Click Language in the top bar to show SchoolCAD in English together with Arabic, Chinese (Simplified, Mandarin), Vietnamese, Hindi or Chinese (Traditional, Cantonese). English stays on the screen and the translation appears with it, so students learn the English CAD words they need while they understand what each step asks. The choice is remembered on that computer.
- Word help underlines technical words. Tap one for a card with its meaning in plain English, the word in the student's language, an explanation, a small picture and read-aloud. It turns on when you choose a language, and it can be used with English only too.
- Word list… shows every technical word, to look up or revise. The glossary lists the same words.
For teachers#
Add these to the end of the SchoolCAD address you give a class (use & instead of ? for the second one):
| Add | What it does |
|---|---|
?tutorial=surf-handplane | Opens straight into the surf handplane tutorial, as a new design. |
?guide=full, ?guide=hints or ?guide=off | Sets how much the Guide shows. |
?tools=advanced or ?tools=standard | Sets the tool set. |
?lang=ar, ?lang=zh-CN, ?lang=vi, ?lang=hi or ?lang=zh-HK | Turns on a language (?lang=en turns it off). |
School spaces: a school can have its own SchoolCAD space at its own address, with the school's name in the top bar and the projects it already teaches loaded as tutorials and Quick design projects. Its tutorials are listed first in Documents. Designs made in a school space are kept separately from designs made at the main SchoolCAD address.