Introduction to Tinkercad: Name Keychain

We will be making a keychain that you can attach to a keyring with your name!

I will show you how to navigate through Tinkercad for this project.

Some Tips before you start:

• Workplane: The blue grid underneath your shapes
• You can change your perspective of the object by dragging the cube at the top left
• You can fit your object to the screen by selecting it and clicking the 2nd button below the cube
• Set your Snap Grid at the bottom right to Off; This gets rid of the constrained units of measurement

When you open up Tinkercad, you will see this home-screen. Under the "Your Designs" tab, select "+ Create". A pull down tab will pop up, and then you select "3D Design". It will open up the work plane in which we will design your keychain. At the top left of the screen you can rename your file to "[YourName]_Keychain". This will make it easier to find when you 3D print it.

On the right side of the screen you will see a list of preset shapes. Everything on Tinkercad 3D modelling starts with variations of these shapes. To use one, simply select it on the side bar and click your mouse on the workplane to place it.

Find the polygon shape in the basic shapes tab, and place it on the workplane. You'll notice a Shape menu popup that has options for you to drag to change the item you have selected. You can also see an outline of the shape on the workplane.

You can use the dots on that outline to change the shapes size/dimensions, while the teardrop shape at the top of it changes the space between the shape and the workplane. Holding shift while changing the dimensions with your mouse will uniformly change the dimension values of the whole shape. Mess around with the functions so you understand how it works, and then click ctrl-z until you are back to the original polygon.

Click on the curved arrows at the bottom of the shape, and set the angle to -90 degrees. Click the sides of your shapes outline on the workplane to view its dimensions. Change them to match the image (2x1).

In the center of the object will be a white dot; This dot controls the height of your object. Change the height to (.18).

First let's change the color of the shape to make the lines more visible. In the shapes pull down menu, click the circle above the word "Solid" and pick the white color at the top right of the presets menu. Now we will be able to see the bevel more clearly.

In the shapes pull down menu, change the Bevel to (2.5). Once you click the workplane you will be able to see where the shape got indented.

To make the border in the keychain that will surround your name in the center, we will need to cut a hole of the same shape. To do this we will learn a few features: Duplicate, Align, and Group

First we will duplicate and raise a copy of our original shape. To do this, click our beveled polygon and then the 3rd button on the tools bar at the top of the screen (You can view the name of each tool by hovering over the button). You will see your shape flash for a second, which means it duplicated successfully. Now use the black teardrop shape to pull it slightly above our original shape.

Remove the bevel on our duplicate by changing it back to zero in the shape menu. Make another duplicate of this one and set it aside to use in a bit. In the shape menu, change the polygon floating above the original into a hole by clicking the grey circle above the word "hole".

Change where the workplane is located by clicking the workplane button right above the "Basic Shapes" menu. Place it by clicking the flat center of the original polygon.

Click your hole polygon, and then drag the black cone above it up slightly. This will show you a measurement of how high the object is from the workplane. Set it to (-.06). Set the dimensions to match the ones in the image (1.519x0.759)

Aligning: While holding down the Shift key, select your hole and your original polygon. Then click the Align tool at the top right. Dots should appear all around your shapes; click your original polygon and then the dots to the side and bottom of the shape flat on the workplane. Now centered, click the Group tool at the the top right. This cut out the "hole" shape from the solid shape, making it one object now. When you group multiple shapes, you lose the ability to use the other features in the Shape menu.

(By clicking your original polygon before the dots, it lets the program know that you want everything else to be centered/moved to match that object; Whatever was clicked won't move)

Now set your workplane back to the original by selecting the workplane tool and clicking in the empty space.

Take the other duplicate you set aside earlier and drag over your new shape. Set the measurements to match the image (1.35x0.675).

This time we will center it fully with the Align tool. Go through the same steps of holding shift and selecting both objects, clicking the align tool, and then the original polygon. This time we will also click the bottom of the dots that are raised from the workplane. Group them together.

Move to an empty part of the workplane and place a cylinder. In its Shape Menu, change "Sides" to 64. This will make it smoother.

Change the measurements to match the picture (.28x.28); set the height to (.18). Move it to about equally spaced between the edge and the center on the left side, and then align it to be centered horizontally.

Create a duplicate of the cylinder and raise it above, turning the duplicate into a hole. Set the measurements as shown (.2x.2). Align it to the center bottom of the solid cylinder, making them overlap. Drag your mouse over the whole shape from the top right to bottom left and Group.

(Whatever color the shape is that you hover over first is what the whole object will be colored as)

When 3D printing, having a flat bottom makes it easier, as it eliminates the need to use supports. The bevel command adds it to both the top and bottom of the shape, meaning the bottom of our keychain isn't completely flat. To fix this we will cut off the bezel and then fix the height to be (.18) again.

Place a box hole on the workplane, and set it's height to (0.025). Stretch the sides to make sure it will cut off a thin layer from the whole bottom and group them together.

Click the black cone drag it up to see the measurement between the object and the workplane. Make sure to set it as zero.

Set the height back to (.18)

Set your workplane as the center of the keychain.

Place down the Text shape on the workplane, and open its Shape Menu. Change the text to your name or last name, and set it as a hole.

Hold Shift and drag the Bottom left corner of the text to Uniformly shrink it until it all fits within the center space of the keychain with a little bit of room on the sides. Keep changing the size and moving it on the keychain until you like the size and spacing.

(It may help to change to Top View, by clicking it on the Cube in the top left corner.)

Set the height of the text to (0.09). Then drag the black cone up, setting the space between the object and the workplane as (-0.09).

Go back to the original workplane, and align your name with the keychain horizontally. Group.

You now know how to navigate the basic features of Tinkercad, and you got a keychain out of it! These features can go a long way, so while we made something simple this time, they can be applied almost infinitely. Thank you for following this tutorial!

Please comment if you have any feedback