3d Design

Hot Air Balloon Festival

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

I wanted to create a Hot Air Balloon in Tinkercad. Creating a balloon is easy, the hard part is getting multiple colors. To resolve this issue, I created a template to create colorful hot air balloons. It was so much fun, before I knew it, I had a Festival of Balloons.

This is the multi-color balloon:

Balloon without basket

This balloon was created using the Tinkercad Logo:

The American Flag balloon was created from the flag I designed several years ago.

I’ve used Instructables to provide instructions on how to create a Hot Air Balloon.

Click here for instructions on creating a balloon.

Hot Air Balloon Festival

You may view the festival by clicking this link.

There are two YouTube videos on how I create some of the balloons:

Multi-color Hot Air Balloon
Hot Air Balloon with Text

Christmas Tree with Flowers

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

Merry Christmas! To celebrate I created a Christmas Tree with Flowers that is available for coloring. You may download the coloring page from this link Coloring Pages.

After the coloring page was completed. I decided it would be fun to recreate the tree in Tinkercad as a 3d Design. You may view, copy, change the 3D Design by using this link Christmas Tree with Flowers. If you have any question, please leave them in the comments.

Made with Tinkercad
Up close view of Christmas Tree with Flowers

Railroad Town – Mill

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

I have created buildings for my Railroad Town using Tinkercad. The last building I created was the town’s mercantile. If you look at the front of the building, you will notice that I created some bags of flour along with other supplies.

My thought was if the town mercantile sold flour, they would a supplier for that product. Hence, the water mill for the town was conceived. Originally, I was going to design the mechanism use to grind the grain, but it is complex. If you look in the inside you will see the beginning of the mechanism. I may complete it one day.

First I created the water wheel, which match the gears on the inside. Then I created the building. I needed a trough to direct water on to the water wheel.

The terrain had to be create and adjusted to support the trough.

The door was above water level so I needed a path to enter the building.

I copied my horses and wagon from the Tinkercad design I made for the Town Livery and loaded the wagon with copies of the flour from the town’s Mercantile design file. I just noticed the horses do not have their harness on, let me go correct that.

If you would like to see the 3D design for this building, please visit Tinkercad.

Railroad Town – Mercantile

/ Sarah Collins / 2 Comments

Many years ago I created a 3d train in Tinkercad. My goal was to create all the buildings I needed for a Railroad town. (Yes, I am slow featuring the buildings here.) My Railroad Town, which I named Sunrise, has a Train Station, Saloon, Bank and other buildings. The citizens of this town would need a place to buy and sell goods; the Railroad Town Mercantile was created. Yes, I could have name in General Store, but I wanted a more sophisticated name.

This building was created in Tinkercad, which is a easy to use 3D modeling program which it free to use. It is own by Autodesk and it is their apparent their goal it to teach students how to design. This is the link to view the 3d Railroad Town Mercantile building in Tinkercad.

There is no inside of the building. I created items for placement on the porch; barrels, flour bags, crates of apples and oranges, and fabric rolls.

Note the hinge and lock on the back door. If these items were normal size and 3d printed, they would actually function.

Railroad Town Sheriff’s Office

/ Sarah Collins / Leave a comment

Once I had designed a Saloon and a Bank for my Railroad Town, I thought was necessary for some law enforcement to be available to handle nasty situations. The Sheriff’s Office was created. I wanted the give the building a log cabin feel. Iron doors were placed on the cell and the front entrance just in case the Sheriff was called away. A small storage area was create on the roof with a ladder leading up. It also provided another means for escape, if there is a problem. The Sheriff needed a desk and note the gun rack. There is no guns in the building when the Sheriff is not present. Please don’t look in the bucket in the cell.

This building was designed using Tinkercad. Click here If you would like to see the 3d design: Sheriff Office

Recognizing Christopher Fet

/ Sarah Collins / 1 Comment

There are so many designers in Tinkercad that never get recognized, so I decided that I would start recognizing them on my blog. Christopher Fet’s designs of trains and train tracks is impressive. But, Christopher Fet provides a great example of giving created to other designers when he uses pieces of their designs in his work. According to his profile, he only been using Tinkercad since July 2020. You can see Christopher Fet’s other designs on Tinkercad.

The GE AC4400CW was a very well selling locomotive. They were built from 1995 to 2004, when a newer model, the ES44AC, was introduced. SP owned over 200 of these locomotives. SP 262 was built in 1995 and has some fame of leading the last train over Tennessee Pass.
Even though my brother made a coupler, his is for a steam engine the fifties. It also has an unrealistic flat edge, so I decided to make my own. 
The Pacific Lumber Company, of Scotia, California, had a logging railroad built to carry logs to the mill. It even built a section of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, which it interchanged with. They had almost 40 steam engines, and had five diesels. The GE 80 Tonner 102 was one of them.
My railroad track, but with concrete “sleepers” for modern trains.

Railroad Town – Bank

/ Sarah Collins / 2 Comments

The next building I designed for my Railroad Town is the Bank. With the Railroad Station, Saloon, Livery, and others a lot of commerce would be conducted in the town, the town would need a place for the residence to store their funds. I did not create a inside for the bank, because I wanted to print the design. See the 3d Bank in Tinkercad.

Recognizing pbretzger

/ Sarah Collins / 2 Comments

There are so many designers in Tinkercad that never get recognized, so I decided that I would start recognizing them on my blog. pbretzger designs are unique and interesting. I love their use of color. Their profile states they have been using Tinkercad since September 2020.

This three-by-one bay arcade has the added interest of an ancient Roman stone bench and a decorative floor pattern.
Michael Graves was a world-renowned architect. He also designed housewares like the tea kettle that inspired this Tinkercad model.
This vase derives its two-color, low-reflectivity concept from the Wedgwood company’s famous “jasperware” line. Tinkercad’s “Twisty Ring” object comprise most of the model’s white detailing.
Monuments such as this dot the Irish landscape, many of them well over a thousand years old, thus signifying the country’s ancient devotion to the Catholic religion.
A Castilian Spanish invention, the “morion” helmet is an iconic design that several European kingdoms adopted before it finally went out of use, generations after its introduction.

Recognizing Ella Zhong

/ Sarah Collins / 2 Comments

There are so many designers in Tinkercad that never get recognized, so I decided that I would start recognizing them on my blog.  Ella Zhong’s designs are awesome. The designs shows that she is not only creative in creating the designs, but writing the story behind the design. Ella Zhong profile states:

Ｈｉ　ｔｈｅｒｅ, and welcome to my profile! I’m a fifth grader, and I like reading books, messing with designs and also science. All my designs are made by me, no copies! (Unless I’m in a contest.)

If you look closely, every design has my hibiscus-based flower badge hidden in it! If you find it, tell me in the comments the approximate location, so others can find it too. For example: “The flower is hidden in a tapestry in your house.”

You can see all of Ella Zhong’s designs on Tinkercad.

A peaceful community garden designed to remind us of the beauty of nature, featuring detailed birdhouses, benches, bird feeders, and a water wheel you can spin! (Somehow this makes me nostalgic for the warmer months.)
A fun, original water bottle, in the shape of a rainbow unicorn’s horn, when printed the right size, it can hold 1 liter of water. The lid works by strong magnets, but don’t worry, they are contained properly. Its shape allows it to fit easily in a small container, with a loop for easy carrying
Another attempt with curved bodies with wave dupe, and something I made just to satisfy my need to make something new. Perfect for storing reactive or strong solutions, this bottle is covered and carved with lock jewels that prevent any chance of theft. The small staring dragon is poised to attack at the first thief it spots, and the stardust gold stopper further increases the strength. There are less than 500 remaining, since these bottles are ancient.

Railroad Town Saloon

/ Sarah Collins / 9 Comments

The next building I designed for my Railroad Town and the Saloon. I now had the Train Station were people disembark, these people needed some place to relax. I decided to design some of the interior of the Saloon. It needed tables and chairs, a bar, and a player piano.

The horse was export as a STL and imported into this design. I changed it color to black.

The Player Piano has all 88 keys.