foolfillment: the blog

I’ve put together a wee tutorial on using Autodesk Inventor. I’ve been using the Professional 2008 version but most of it transfers across to other versions.

It is based around a series of screenshots hosted in a set on flickr with supporting notes. It works really well if you click through the set image by image. This is the first screen.

Flickr’s slideshow transitions mean that it is pretty slick when you watch it that way, although the notes added on top of the images don’t show – anyone know of a way around this other than editing the images themselves?

I’d love to know what people think of it, it was only a couple of hours work but would be nice to know I’ve not wasted that time.

I’m hoping to use flickr tomorrow – it may not work depending on the school’s internet connection. The lesson will be an exercise introducing Assemblies in Inventor, a 3D modelling package. I’ve put together a few screenshots of the exercise the class are to do and then given instructions alongside them in a new photoset in flickr. Just so you can share in the joy of learning about constraints I’m going to make it all available here. I’ll make the files needed available here too and also put together a powerpoint with the images in case you can’t access flickr at your school.

Here is the flickr set, it’ll work best if you view it as a slideshow.
Here are the Inventor Parts you will need.
Here is the powerpoint in ppt format.

I’m also going to make the photos open for comments and notes and encourage my class to make use of that – will they take up the chance of an audience? (unfortunately I think it might only be a few as it requires them to be a flickr member – boo!)

Until tonight I thought bubbleshare was just another photosharing site, then I came across this post from Pam McDowell and saw the story she had created. It is similar to flickr but it does have great potential for stories and tutorials for kids, it’s just a lot more fun than flickr.

Anyway, I spent a wee while (longer than I had hoped but there you go) making up a quick tutorial on using Inventor, a 3D modelling package. While it doesn’t go into detail about how I made the drawing it does I think show how quick and easy Inventor can be.

I think I probably broke all of the rules about good design with this tutorial, in fact I feel like the person who uses 18 different animations and sounds in Powerpoint, but it was fun, next time I’ll be more restrained

I was pretty happy with most of bubbleshare but it still felt a little rough around the edges, so I still prefer flickr but will definitely think about this in school.

Anyway, are you ready to see my work(!)? Here you go:

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Update:Having looked at it on this page I think you’d be better seeing the slideshow on bubbleshare itself to get it full size.