We are cooking with gas now people! Hot off the press. The 3D Manufacturing Format (3MF) file type is about to go prime-time owing to KeyShot and Stratasys. This dynamic duo is bringing an honest to goodness CMF experience to early-stage physical prototyping. For those not familiar, the 3MF format could be likened to a…
Imagine being able to grow your own footwear. Yep, we are talking sprouting a pair of bio sneakers in a matter of hours! Footwear designer @23_heels over on Instagram has a concept that takes a page out of nature, specifically the rapid growth of mushroom mycelium. In like manner, the shoe aesthetic bears a striking…
The folks over at Onshape have been cranking out a ton of resource material across all categories. I’m especially excited over the uptick in surface creation related content being published out. For example, two new surfacing courses recently went live on the Learning Center. So if learning Onshape is on your bucket list, I encourage…
Multi-cavity tooling is the topic we’ll be exploring in today’s SkillCoach Plastics Playground. Now I’m not referring to picks, scrapers, or the high-pitched rotary tools used to make quick work of a menacing cavity wreaking havoc on your molar. Rather, I’m speaking of an injection-mold tooling configuration.Multi-cavity tooling helps optimize the production of plastic parts.…
Digital food storage is the name of the game in this tutorial. In a recent assignment, I sought to coach my CAD students at Virginia Tech through an Onshape modeling exercise in the kitchenware category. Our aim was to build a parametric model that was robust and could be morphed into different configurations by changing…
In this post, I’m celebrating another Onshape CAD mystery solved! You see, time and again I was left scratching my head as to the mystery of why my nicely and precisely placed dimensions kept disappearing when building up my 2D sketch sections in Onshape! Before me was the case of the “Disappearing Sketcher Dimensions” (DSD).…
The season of festive celebration is upon us! With the semester of teaching ID at Virginia Tech behind me, I’m thoroughly enjoying my extended moments of family, fellowship, and food! So when my daughter Phoebe got inspired to make a batch of cookies the other day, I was all in! Being the creative type that…
Well, the end of the year is rapidly approaching! And if you are an aspiring Onshape CAD user I’ve got an early Christmas present for you! I’ve compiled my SkillCoach Onshape CAD Improvements Mega Resource Pack! Yep, I scoured the Onshape website for every CAD improvement they posted pertaining to modeling tools and techniques that…
What in the world is a “Squircle” you might ask? Well, its a cross between a square and a circle. Designers the world over admire the squircle because it gives us a lot of form exploration range. If I want a product to be perceived as stately or strong I might adjust the squircle more…
Seeing one’s ideas come to life right before you is a thrill! That’s what can happen when you set out to explore your creativity by making stuff. You may have questions such as “Where do I start?” Or, “What materials and tools do I use to construct my idea?” Look no further (at least for the…
Calling all designers, engineers, and would-be sketching aficionados! Grab your drawing sticks because Inktober 2017 has officially kicked off! For those of you not familiar with Inktober the short story is that it’s a 31-day drawing challenge created by a guy name Jake Parker back in 2009. His aim was/is to inspire creatives to improve…
I’ve always wanted to let up for a few minutes, take a break from marking all over my face and arms and really get into the nitty-gritty of making my 3D sketch shapes look magnificent. Fortunately, Spencer from IDSketching is here to show us how to do just that. With the following video, he makes…
Trust me, you’ll want to remove yourself for a few moments from the pile of various material samples heaped upon your pale face. You may also want to clear out some space in your “Useful Resources” bookmarks. The Material Information Society (ASM International), known for their material workshops, also has a very helpful material database…
I’m happy to say that Industrial Design is alive and well in the Social Media sphere due in part to a select few Industrial Designer bringing things together to let everyone else know what’s up. Industrial Designers around the world are getting organized on Twitter. The coolest thing about it? They’re not just using it…
It may not be enough that you know how to sort desktop folders, write a cordial email or sketch a straight line, you may actually need to know some software that allows others to see what’s going on in the recesses of your analytically-primed imagination. There are hundreds of software apps that help Industrial Designers…