BlocksCAD

Draft

Introduction

BlocksCAD is a scratch-like programming environment to create 3D objects. It was developed with the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the code is licensed GPLv3 or later. At the bottom of a project page (oct. 2018) we found the following definition: “BlocksCAD is an education technology company dedicated to creating tools that help students of all ages pursue their love of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM). Our signature product, BlocksCAD, is a cloud-based 3D modeling tool that encourages users to learn math, computational thinking and coding concepts through visualization and designing models to be 3D printed.”

The ownership and copyright of user-created models is not clear (to us).

If we understood right, BlocksCAD is implemented with Blockly, a a JavaScript library for building visual programming editors like Scratch.

Example

The "flower" described below was created to explore basic functionality. It took a few attempts to understand how to use loop variables (tip: check under "variables", then drag them).

• It demonstrates subtractive geometry
• Rotation and translation needed to position objects
• A loop to create a curved object from cubes (using "hull" option) in the loop
• A loop to rotate the same arm six times.

BlocksCAD flower code and rendering

View the https://edutechwiki.unige.ch/mediawiki/images/9/95/Fleur.stl

The generated STL seemed to be error free and the printer happily started printing it:

BlocksCAD flower printing

BlocksCAD flower printed

Alternatives

• OpenSCAD (non visual programming language)
• Beetle Blocks (Romagosa et al.), built on top of Snap

Links

Official

• blockscad3d.com/
• Parent FAQs
• Community, featured projects, blog posts, news.
• On Twitter

Others

• BlocksCAD (In German) A concise introduction.

Bibliography

• Berdik, C. (2017). Kids Code Their Own 3D Creations with New Blocks-Based Design Program. Tech Directions, 76(9), 23.
• Williams, K. (2015). Girls, Boys, and'Bots: The St. Clare's robotics team [Pipelining: Attractive Programs for Women]. IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine, 9(1), 25-28.
• Chytas, C., Diethelm, I., & Tsilingiris, A. (2018, April). Learning programming through design: An analysis of parametric design projects in digital fabrication labs and an online makerspace. In Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2018 IEEE (pp. 1978-1987). IEEE.
• Chytas, C., Diethelm, I., & Lund, M. Parametric Design and Digital Fabrication in Computer Science Education.
• Romagosa Carrasquer, Bernat. (2016). From the turtle to the beetle. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya http://openaccess.uoc.edu/webapps/o2/handle/10609/52807