Recent CAD Designs

This was an exciting step in my back-to-CAD journey as I was able to predict some of the steps that the author of this tutorial video would take to model this wireless headphone casing. I love how it turned out!

This ice cream cone was a quick exercise in parametric modeling (or the use of equations in my design). I wanted to figure out a way to make the waffle ridges look consistent and crunchy without having to repeat the same steps 19 times, so a little bit of math paired with linear and circular patterns came in handy.

This was actually the first time I've made a mold in Solidworks! It was great to learn more about configuring and using the mold tools as well as making an animated exploded assembly. Here's the tutorial that introduced me to these design tools.

This belt and pulley assembly (tutorial video here) was a great refresher on how to use motion studies as well as the belt/chain feature in Solidworks. I'm hoping to design a bicycle soon, and I know that this experience will come in handy when I get started on that project!

This one was a bit of a challenge to do in 15 minutes, but I am pretty happy with the bottle and spout -with a bit more detailing, the lid would more closely resemble my reference object, so I hope to get around to working on that sometime. I used slider and revolute mates to make a functional screw-on lid in my Onshape assembly.

This little tea-light lantern was inspired by a design I saw on Glowforge's design database but didn't want to pay for. I made my own version complete with the thickness of the wood I had available and sent the finished product home with the student who helped me laser cut it as a gift for their mother! It uses a cross lap joint at the top and four mortise and tenon joints at the bottom to stay together without needing glue.

This might have been the design that started my 15 minute CAD project - I originally designed it with two goals in mind: 1 - to match a dresser I had built based on a Pinterest design and 2- to show my students how to make a time lapse of their design processes. We'll see if I ever get around to actually building it!

I made these (along with instructional videos) to show my students how to use the spline tools as well as create angled planes. "Copying" the Flathead part file and editing it into a Phillips head saved time & hopefully taught my students something about working smarter, not harder.

This was another instructional design as I taught a unit on Design for X. In this case, X was laser cutting, and I wanted my students to be able to "find the flaw" in my design - that is, the bottom right box joint isn't properly aligned with the edge. That's an easy fix, as long as you catch it before you start the laser cut!

Once I figured out that teaching students to design things in CAD that they had made physically using origami was more effective than anything else that I'd tried, there was no going back. These flowers are a great way to introduce students to many advanced topics in Onshape, including assemblies, 3D fit splines, lofts, and circular arrays.