I did a brief overview last week, giving you a formal introduction to TinkerCAD and I had been playing around with it more in depth and taking extensive notes to share with you.
Today, it was announced that TinkerCAD will be no more.
What does that mean for users? Well, here's the "shut down timeline" that was provided:
- Effective immediately we have closed sign-ups for new users
- April 30 2013 - All free accounts will be changed to read only
- August 31 2013 - All academic accounts will be changed to read only
- December 31 2013 - All paid accounts will be changed to read only
- June 31 2014 - Read only access for all users will be discontinued
I had really hoped to get more people on board and get them started modeling using TinkerCAD through this blog. Unfortunately, it's now closed to new users.
If you had signed up prior to today and had a free account (which means only one design at a time is available to you - that was what I had prior to getting the paid version last week), you've got a little more than a month of working time left.
At this point, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I will probably cancel my paid account and move on to another software and outline it here. It's disappointing, though. I had hoped to use TinkerCAD to teach basic 3D modeling to the kids I work with.
In fact, I took a few prints to work today to share with the kids. One of the kid's dad REALLY wants to get a 3D printer. This kid knew a lot about 3D modeling and the basics of how the printer worked. He started describing "this thing you can go to on the internet that lets you design anything you want. And they have really cool rabbit ears." TinkerCAD.
Even kids know about it! (and it was going to be a great teaching tool!)
I'm on the hunt for a user friendly 3D modeling program to learn and help others learn. I'll keep you updated on my progress.
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