Course Description

Have you ever wondered how objects from our daily lives are designed? How can we generate a computer 3D model of a mug, a bottle of Diet Coke, or a Saturn V rocket? What about designing the blades of a jet engine? A test dummy? How about making an animation of a LEGO house building itself? Or making a realistic render …

Have you ever wondered how objects from our daily lives are designed? How can we generate a computer 3D model of a mug, a bottle of Diet Coke, or a Saturn V rocket? What about designing the blades of a jet engine? A test dummy? How about making an animation of a LEGO house building itself? Or making a realistic render of a bowl of fruit? In this workshop, you will learn skills to design all these and much more!

How to CAD Almost Anything introduces students to CAD (Computer-Aided Design) through various fun examples focused on reverse engineering. In contrast to traditional mechanical design courses, this workshop emphasizes the design process itself, understanding how to plan and best leverage our available tools to arrive at our desired result. Thus, the sessions are less about following the instructions on an engineering drawing and more about independent thinking and strategizing, such as reverse engineering an object into a 3D model.

Come and learn how to CAD almost anything!

This supplemental resource offers links to the class’s Solidworks, Fusion 360, Onshape, and Siemens NX website materials and companion playlists of the Solidworks, Fusion 360, Onshape, and Siemens NX session recordings on YouTube.

Course Info

Learning Resource Types

Lecture Notes

Lecture Videos